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 wretched girl who hasn't got that be turned
down? She wants protection all the more.

MRS MARCH. I've offered to help with money till she gets a place.

JOHNNY. And you know she won't take it. She's got that much stuff in
her. This place is her only chance. I appeal to you, Mother--please
tell her not to go.

MRS MARCH. I shall not, Johnny.

JOHNNY. [Turning abruptly] Then we know where we are.

MRS MARCH. I know where you'll be before a week's over.

JOHNNY. Where?

MRS MARCH. In her arms.

JOHNNY. [From the door, grimly] If I am, I'll have the right to be!

MRS MARCH. Johnny! [But he is gone.]

MRS MARCH follows to call him back, but is met by MARY.

MARY. So you've tumbled, Mother?

MRS MARCH. I should think I have! Johnny is making an idiot of himself
about that girl.

MARY. He's got the best intentions.

MRS MARCH. It's all your father. What can one expect when your father
carries on like a lunatic over his paper every morning?

MARY. Father must have opinions of his own.

MRS MARCH. He has only one: Whatever is, is wrong.

MARY. He can't help being intellectual, Mother.

MRS MARCH. If he would only learn that the value of a sentiment is the
amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it!

MARY. Yes: I read that in "The Times" yesterday. Father's much