ould stand
the dulness of it. I must have work and excitement, or I should go
melancholy mad. And what else is there for me to do? The life suits me:
I'm fit for it and not for anything else. If I didn't do it somebody else
would; so I don't do any real harm by it. And then it brings in money;
and I like making money. No: it's no use: I can't give it up--not for
anybody. But what need you know about it? I'll never mention it. I'll
keep Crofts away. I'll not trouble you much: you see I have to be
constantly running about from one place to another. Youll be quit of me
altogether when I die.

VIVIE. No: I am my mother's daughter. I am like you: I must have work,
and must make more money than I spend. But my work is not your work, and
my way is not your way. We must part. It will not make much difference
to us: instead of meeting one another for perhaps a few months in twenty
years, we shall never meet: thats all.

MRS WARREN [her voice stifled in tears] Vivie: I meant to have been more
with you: I did indeed.

VIVIE. It's no use, mother: I am not to be changed by a few cheap tears
and entreaties any more than you are, I daresay.

MRS WARREN [wildly] Oh, you call a mother's tears cheap.

VIVIE. They cost you nothing; and you ask me to give you the peace
and quietness of my whole life in exchange for them. What use would my
company be to you if you could get it? What have we two in common that
could make either of us happy together?

MRS WARREN [lapsing recklessly into her dialect] We're mother and
daughter. I want my daughter. I've a right to you. Who is to care for me
when I'm old? Plenty of girls have taken to me like daughters and cried
at leaving me; but I let them all go because I had you to look forward
to. I kept myself lonely for you. You've no right to turn on me now and
refuse to do your duty as a daughter.

VIVIE [jarred and antagonized by the echo of the slums in her mother's
voice] My duty as a daughter! I thought we should come to that
presently. Now once for all, mother, you want a daughter and Frank wants
a wife. I don't want a mother; and I don't want a husband. I have spared
neither Frank nor myself in sending him about his business. Do you think
I will spare you?

MRS WARREN [violently] Oh, I know the sort you are: no mercy for
yourself or anyone else. _I_ know. My experience has done that for me
anyhow: I can tell the pious, canting, hard, selfish woman when I meet
her. Well, keep yourself to y