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