FeLIAT. How do you think the men will take it? You know that last year, before you came here, a strike of the workmen was broken by the women taking the work the men were asking a rise for--taking it at lower wages, too. Since then the men feel very strongly against the women.

Your G.o.dfather is anxious about it.

THeReSE. Oh, leave it to me, I'm not afraid.

FeLIAT. Well done. I like pluck. Go ahead. How lucky I was to get you here.

THeReSE. How grateful I am to you for believing in me. [_Lucienne appears at the door on the right. She is speaking to a workwoman who is not visible, while the following conversation goes on_] And how good you are, too, to have given work to poor Lucienne. When I think what you saved her from! She really owes her life to you. At any rate she owes it to you that she's living respectably.

FeLIAT. Well, I owe _you_ ten per cent reduction on my general expenses.

[_With a change of tone_] Then that's agreed? You're going ahead?

THeReSE. Yes, Monsieur.

FeLIAT. I'll go and give the necessary orders. [_He goes out_]

THeReSE. It's all right. It's done. He's agreed! I'm to have my new workroom, and you're to be the head of it.

LUCIENNE. Oh, splendid! Then I'm really of some importance here at last.

[_A long happy sigh_] Oh dear, how happy I am. I'd never have believed I could have enjoyed the smell of a bindery so. [_Sniffing_] Glue, and white of egg, and old leather; it's lovely! Oh, Therese, what you did for me in bringing me here! What I owe you! That's what a woman's being free means; it means a woman who earns her own living.

THeReSE. Oh, you're right! Isn't it splendid, Lucienne, ten wretched women saved, thanks to our new workshop. I've seen Duriot's forewoman.

At any moment fifty women from there may be out of work. I can take on only ten at present, and I've had to choose. That was dreadful! Thirty of them are near starvation. I took the worst cases: the old maids, the girls with babies, the ones whose husbands have gone off and left them, the widows. Every one of those, but for me, would have been starved or gone on the streets. I used to want to write books and realize my dreams that way. Now I can realize them by work. I wish Caroline Legrand could know what I'm doing. It was she who helped me to get over my silly pride, and come and ask for work here.

LUCIENNE. Dear Caroline Legrand! Without her! Without you! [_With a change of tone_] What d'you suppose happened to me this morning? I had a visit from Monsieur Gambard.

THeReSE [_laughing_] Another visit! I shall be jealous!

LUCIENNE. You've reason. For the last week that excellent old man has come every single morning with a book for me to bind. I begged him not to take so much trouble, and I told him that if he had more work for us to do, we could send for the books to his house. What d'you think he did to-day?

THeReSE. I've no idea.

LUCIENNE. He asked me to marry him.

THeReSE. My dear! What then?

LUCIENNE. Why, then I told him that I was married and separated from my husband.

THeReSE. There's such a thing as divorce.

LUCIENNE. Naughty girl! That's exactly what he said. I told him that my first experience of marriage was not calculated to make me run the chances of a second. And then he asked me to be his mistress.

THeReSE. Indignation of Lucienne!

LUCIENNE. No! I really couldn't be angry. He offered so navely to settle part of his fortune upon me that I was disarmed. I simply told him I was able to earn my own living, so I was not obliged to sell myself.

THeReSE. And he went off?

LUCIENNE. And he went off.

THeReSE [_starting suddenly_] Was that three o'clock that struck.

LUCIENNE. Yes, but there's nothing very extraordinary in that.

THeReSE. Not for you, perhaps. But I made up my mind not to think about a certain thing until it was three o'clock. I stuck to it--almost--not very easily. Well, my dear, three o'clock to-day is a most solemn hour in my life.

LUCIENNE. You don't say so!

THeReSE. _I do._ Lucienne, I am so happy. I don't know how I can have deserved to be as happy as I am.

LUCIENNE. Good gracious, what's happened in the last five minutes?

THeReSE. I'll tell you. One hour ago Rene arrived at Evreux. He's come back from Tunis. Come back a success and a somebody. And now--

_Vincent, a workman, comes in._

VINCENT. Good-morning, Mademoiselle Therese. I want a word with you, because it's you who engages--

THeReSE. Not the workmen.

VINCENT. I know. But it's about a woman, about my wife.

THeReSE [_sharply_] Your wife? But I don't want your wife.

VINCENT. I heard as how you were taking on hands.

THeReSE. Yes, but I choose them carefully. First of all I take the ones who need work or are not wanted at home.

VINCENT. You're quite right--but I ain't asking you to pay my old woman very much--not as much as a man.

THeReSE. Why not, if she does the same work?

VINCENT [_with male superiority_] Well, in the first place, she's only a woman; and, besides, if you didn't make a bit out of it, you wouldn't take her in the place of a man.

THeReSE. But you get excellent wages here yourself. You can live without forcing your wife to work.

VINCENT. Well, anyhow, her few halfpence would be enough to pay for my tobacco.

LUCIENNE [_laughing_] Come, you don't smoke as much as all that.

VINCENT. Besides, it'll put a bit more b.u.t.ter on the bread.

THeReSE. But your wife will take the place of another woman who hasn't even dry bread perhaps.

VINCENT. Oh, if one was bothering all the time about other people's troubles, you'd have enough to do!

THeReSE. Now will you forgive me if I meddle a little in what isn't exactly my business?

VINCENT. Oh, go on, you won't upset me.