What Gives One Girl Power Over Another?

   Rosalie: Do you know what it is? How’d
   you find out? (the secret) You’re
   always pretending you know
   everything. You’re just faking.
5  (Flounces away) Never mind,
  don’t bother telling me. I think
   curiosity is very unladylike,
   anyhow. I have no concern with
   your silly secrets.
10  Mary: Suppose I told you that I just may
   have said that you were in on it?
   Rosalie: In on what?
   Mary The secret. Suppose I told you
   that I may have said that you told
15  me about it?
   Rosalie: Why, Mary Tilford! You can’t do
   a thing like that. I didn’t tell you
   about anything. (Mary laughs)
    Did you tell your grandmother
20  such a thing?
   Mary: Maybe.
   Rosalie: Did you?
   Mary: Maybe.
     Rosalie Well, I’m going right up to your
25  grandmother and tell her I didn’t
   tell you anything—Whatever it is.
      You’re just trying to get me into
      trouble and I’m not going to let
      you. (Starts for door.)
30   Mary: Wait a minute, I’ll come with
      you.
      Rosalie: What for?
      Mary I want to tell her about Helen
      Burton’s bracelet.
35   Rosalie(sits down suddenly): What about
      it?
      Mary: Just that you stole it.
      Rosalie: Shut up. I didn’t do any such
      thing.
40   Mary: Yes, you did.
      Rosalie (tearfully): You made it up.
      You’re always making things up.
      Mary: You can’t call me a fibber,
      Rosalie Wells. That’s a kind of
45   a dare and I won’t take a dare. I
      guess I’ll go tell Grandma,
      anyway. Then she can call the
      police and they’ll come for you
      and you’ll spend the rest of your
50   life in one of those solitary
      prisons and you’ll get older and
      older, and when you’ve very old
      and can’t see anymore, they’ll let
      you out maybe with a big sign on
55   your back saying you’ve a thief,
      and your mother and father will
      be dead and you won’t have any
      place to go and you’ll beg on the
      streets.
60   Rosalie: I didn’t steal anything. I borrowed
      the bracelet and I was going to
      put it back as soon as I’d
     worn it
      to the movies. I never meant to
      keep it.
65   Mary: Nobody’ll believe that, least of all
      the police. You’re just a common,
      ordinary thief. Stop that bawling.
      You’ll have the whole house
      down here in a minute.
70   Rosalie: You won’t tell? Say you won’t
      tell.
      Mary: Am I a fibber?
      Rosalie: No.
      Mary Then say: “I apologize on my
75   hands and knees.”
      Rosalie: I apologize on my hands and
      knees. Let’s play with the puzzle.
      Mary :Wait a minute. Say: “From now
      on, I, Rosalie Wells, am the
80   vassal of Mary Tilford and will
      do and say whatever she tells me
      under the solemn oath of a
      knight.”
—Lillian Hellman, excerpted from The
Children’s Hour, 1934