THÉRÈSE. You've done so much for women. You've helped so many.
MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT [_touching her piles of letters_] Here's another who won't renew.
THÉRÈSE. What will Madame Nérisse say? [_Continuing_] You know, Mademoiselle, it's not only success that I want. I have a great ambition. I should like to think that because I've lived there might be a little less suffering in the world. That's the sort of thing that I can say to nobody but you.
MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT [_tenderly_] Thérèse has an ardent soul.
THÉRÈSE. Yes, Thérèse has an ardent soul. It was you who said that about me first, and I think I deserve it. [_Changing her tone_] Here's the subscriber's book. [_She hands the book and continues in her former voice_] Like Guyan, I have more tears than I need to spend on my own sufferings, so I can give the spare ones to other people. And not only tears, but courage and consolation that I have no opportunity of using up myself. Do you understand what I mean?
MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. Yes, I understand, my dear. I see my own youth over again. [_Sadly_] Oh, I hope that you--but I don't want to rouse up those old ghosts; I should only distress you. Perhaps lives like mine are necessary, if it's only to throw into relief lives that are more beautiful than mine. Keep your lovely dreams. [_A silence_] When I think that instead of being an old maid I might have been the mother of a girl like you!
THÉRÈSE [_leaning towards her and kissing her hair_] Don't cry.
MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT [_tears in her eyes and a smile upon her lips_] No, no, I won't; and when I think that somewhere or other there's a man you love!
THÉRÈSE [_smiling_] Some day or other I must tell you a whole lot of things about René.
MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. Have you seen him again?
MADEMOISELLE DE MEURIOT. But you were supposed not to meet any more.
THÉRÈSE [_with a mutinous little smile_] Yes, we were supposed not to meet any more. One says those things and then one meets all the same. If René had gone on being the feeble and lamentable young man that I parted from the _Barberine_ evening, I should perhaps have never seen him again. You don't know what my René has done, do you now?
THÉRÈSE. I've been looking forward so to telling you. [_Eagerly_] Well, he's quite changed. He's become a different man. Oh, he's not a marvel of energy even yet, but he's not the helpless youth who was still feeding out of his father's hands at twenty-five.