ment, looks forlornly at Vivie, who waits,
secretly hoping that the combat is over. But the cunning expression
comes back into Mrs Warren's face; and she bends across the table, sly
and urgent, half whispering.]

MRS WARREN. Vivie: do you know how rich I am?

VIVIE. I have no doubt you are very rich.

MRS WARREN. But you don't know all that that means; youre too young. It
means a new dress every day; it means theatres and balls every night;
it means having the pick of all the gentlemen in Europe at your feet;
it means a lovely house and plenty of servants; it means the choicest of
eating and drinking; it means everything you like, everything you want,
everything you can think of. And what are you here? A mere drudge,
toiling and moiling early and late for your bare living and two cheap
dresses a year. Think over it. [Soothingly] Youre shocked, I know. I can
enter into your feelings; and I think they do you credit; but trust me,
nobody will blame you: you may take my word for that. I know what young
girls are; and I know youll think better of it when you've turned it over
in your mind.

VIVIE. So that's how it is done, is it? You must have said all that to
many a woman, to have it so pat.

MRS WARREN [passionately] What harm am I asking you to do? [Vivie turns
away contemptuously. Mrs Warren continues desperately] Vivie: listen to
me: you don't understand: you were taught wrong on purpose: you don't know
what the world is really like.

VIVIE [arrested] Taught wrong on purpose! What do you mean?

MRS WARREN. I mean that youre throwing away all your chances for
nothing. You think that people are what they pretend to be: that the way
you were taught at school and college to think right and proper is the
way things really are. But it's not: it's all only a pretence, to keep
the cowardly slavish common run of people quiet. Do you want to find
that out, like other women, at forty, when you've thrown yourself away
and lost your chances; or won't you take it in good time now from your
own mother, that loves you and swears to you that it's truth: gospel
truth? [Urgently] Vivie: the big people, the clever people, the managing
people, all know it. They do as I do, and think what I think. I know
plenty of them. I know them to speak to, to introduce you to, to make
friends of for you. I don't mean anything wrong: thats what you don't
understand: your head is full of ignorant ideas about me. What do the
people that taught you