TREBELL. [_In deep anger._] Well, if women will be little and poor....
_She goes to him and slips an arm over his shoulder._
FRANCES. What is it you're worried about ... if a mere sister may ask?
TREBELL. [_Into the fire._] I want to think. I haven't thought for years.
FRANCES. Why, you have done nothing else.
TREBELL. I've been working out problems in legal and political algebra.
FRANCES. You want to think of yourself.
TREBELL. Yes.
FRANCES. [_Gentle and ironic._] Have you ever, for one moment, thought in
that sense of anyone else?
TREBELL. Is that a complaint?
FRANCES. The first in ten years' housekeeping.
TREBELL. No, I never have ... but I've never thought selfishly either.
FRANCES. That's a paradox I don't quite understand.
TREBELL. Until women do they'll remain where they are ... and what they are.
FRANCES. Oh, I know you hate us.
TREBELL. Yes, dear sister, I'm afraid I do. And I hate your influence on men
... compromise, tenderness, pity, lack of purpose. Women don't know the
values of things, not even their own value.
_For a moment she studies him, wonderingly._
FRANCES. I'll take up the counter-accusation to-morrow. Now I'm tired and
I'm going to bed. If I may insult you by mothering you, so should you. You
look tired and I've seldom seen you.
TREBELL. I'm waiting up for a message.
FRANCES.
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