MRS. FALCINGTON. In the seven years of our marriage, he has made love
to every pretty woman he came across.
ISABEL. (_sharply_) Why did you stand for it?
MRS. FALCINGTON. Because I was a fool. And because he is a child.
ISABEL. (_almost pleadingly_) He _can_ write poetry, can't he?
MRS. FALCINGTON. Yes. Yes! Oh, yes!
ISABEL. Then--I suppose--it's all right. But I'm angry at myself, just
the same, for being taken in.
MRS. FALCINGTON. It's strange.... You feel humiliated at having been
made a fool of for seven days. I've been made a fool of for seven
years, and I've never realized that I had a right to feel ashamed.
ISABEL. That's the difference between Greenwich Village and Evanston,
Illinois.
MRS. FALCINGTON. Yes. But when I go back I shall lose the sense of it.
I'll think I'm an injured woman because he was unfaithful to me, or
because he brought scandal upon the family, or something like that. Now
I realize that it's none of those things. It's--it's just an offence
against--my human dignity. I've been treated like--like an inferior.
But why shouldn't I be treated like an inferior? I _am_ an inferior.
When I go back to Evanston, and take up grass-widowhood and the burden
of living down the family scandal, and sit and twiddle my thumbs in a
big house, and have my maiden aunt come to live with me----
ISABEL. But why should you do that? If that's what it means to go back
to Evanston, don't go! Stay here!
MRS. FALCINGTON. But--what could I do?
ISABEL. Do? Why--why--go on the stage!
MRS. FALCINGTON. (_rising_) Are you in earnest?
ISABEL. Look here. You've a good voice, and you're intelligent. That's
enough to start with. I don't know whether you can act or not--but
you'll find out. And if you can't act, you'll do something else. Your
people will stake you?--give you an allowance, I mean?
MRS. FALCINGTON. To go on the stage with? Never. But I've a small
income of my own. Only about a hundred a month. Would that do?
ISABEL. Do? Yes, that will do very well! And now it's my turn to ask
you--are _you_ in earnest? Because I am.
MRS. FALCINGTON. You are the first human being who even suggested to me
that I could do anything. I've wanted to do something, but I couldn't
even think of it as possible. It _wasn't_ possible in Evanston. And as
for _acting_, I kept that dream fast locked at the very bottom of my
heart, for fear if I brought it out it would be shattered by polite
laughter--
ISABEL. You'll have to expose that dream to worse things than polite
laughter, my dear.
MRS. FALCINGTON. I can, now. It won't get hurt. I'm free now to take
care of my dream--to fight for it--to mike it come true. You have set
me free.--I'm going to go and get a room--_now_!
ISABEL. Let me go with you and help you find one!