rstand that
ever since we married. He'd be such a good writer if he did--he wouldn't
write at all.

JOHNNY. Father has imagination.

MRS MARCH. And no business to meddle with practical affairs. You and he
always ride in front of the hounds. Do you remember when the war broke
out, how angry you were with me because I said we were fighting from a
sense of self-preservation? Well, weren't we?

JOHNNY. That's what I'm doing now, anyway.

MRS MARCH. Saving this girl, to save yourself?

JOHNNY. I must have something decent to do sometimes. There isn't an
ideal left.

MRS MARCH. If you knew how tired I am of the word, Johnny!

JOHNNY. There are thousands who feel like me--that the bottom's out of
everything. It sickens me that anything in the least generous should get
sat on by all you people who haven't risked your lives.

MRS MARCH. [With a smile] I risked mine when you were born, Johnny.
You were always very difficult.

JOHNNY. That girl's been telling me--I can see the whole thing.

MRS MARCH. The fact that she suffered doesn't alter her nature; or the
danger to you and us.

JOHNNY. There is no danger--I told her I didn't mean it.

MRS MARCH. And she smiled? Didn't she?

JOHNNY. I--I don't know.

MRS MARCH. If you were ordinary, Johnny, it would be the girl's
look-out. But you're not, and I'm not going to have you in the trap
she'll set for you.

JOHNNY. You think she's a designing minx. I tell you she's got no more
design in her than a rabbit. She's just at the mercy of anything.

MRS MARCH. That's the trap. She'll play on your feelings, and you'll be
caught.

JOHNNY. I'm not a baby.

MRS MARCH. You are--and she'll smother you.

JOHNNY. How beastly women are to each other!

MRS MARCH. We know ourselves, you see. The girl's father realises
perfectly what she is.

JOHNNY. Mr Bly is a dodderer. And she's got no mother. I'll bet you've
never realised the life girls who get outed lead. I've seen them--I saw
them in France. It gives one the horrors.

MRS MARCH. I can imagine it. But no girl gets "outed," as you call it,
unless she's predisposed that way.

JOHNNY. That's all you know of the pressure of life.

MRS MARCH. Excuse me, Johnny. I worked three years among factory girls,
and I know how they manage to resist things when they've got stuff in
them.

JOHNNY. Yes, I know what you mean by stuff--good hard self-preservative
instinct. Why should the