WILL.  Well, he’s twenty-seven and broke, and you’re twenty-five and pretty; and he evidently, being a newspaper man, has that peculiar gift of gab that we call romantic expression.  So I guess I’m not blind, and you both think you’ve fallen in love.  That it?

LAURA.  Yes, I think that’s about it; only I don’t agree to the “gift of gab” and the “romantic” end of it. [Crosses to table.] He’s a man and I’m a woman, and we both have had our experiences.  I don’t think, Will, that there can be much of that element of what some folks call hallucination.

[Sits on chair; takes candy-box on lap; selects candy.

WILL.  Then the Riverside Drive proposition and Burgess’s show is off, eh?

LAURA.  I didn’t say that.

WILL.  And if you go back on the Overland Limited day after to-morrow, you’d just as soon I’d go to-morrow of wait until the day after you leave? [LAURA places candy-box back on table.

LAURA.  I didn’t say that, either.

WILL.  What’s the game?

LAURA.  I can’t tell you now.

WILL.  Waiting for him to come? [Crosses, sits on seat.

LAURA.  Exactly.

WILL.  Think he is going to make a proposition, eh?

LAURA.  I know he is.

WILL.  Marriage?

LAURA.  Possibly.

WILL.  You’ve tried that once, and taken the wrong end.  Are you going to play the same game again?

LAURA.  Yes, but with a different card.

[Picks up magazine off table.

WILL.  What’s his name?

LAURA.  Madison—­John Madison.

[Slowly turning pages of magazine.

WILL.  And his job?

LAURA.  Reporter.

WILL.  What are you going to live on,—­the extra editions?

LAURA.  No, we’re young, there’s plenty of time.  I can work in the meantime, and so can he; and then with his ability and my ability it will only be a matter of a year or two when things will shape themselves to make it possible.

WILL.  Sounds well—­a year off.

LAURA.  If I thought you were going to make fun of me, Will, I shouldn’t have talked to you.

[Throws down magazine, crosses to door of house.

WILL. [Crossing down in front of table.] I don’t want to make fun of you, but you must realize that after two years it isn’t an easy thing to be dumped with so little ceremony.  Maybe you have never given me any credit for possessing the slightest feeling, but even I can receive shocks from other sources than a break in the market.

LAURA. [Crosses to WILL.] It isn’t easy for me to do this.  You’ve been awfully kind, awfully considerate, but when I went to you it was just with the understanding that we were to be pals.  You reserved the right then to quit me whenever you felt like it, and you gave me the same privilege.  Now, if some girl came along who really captivated you in the right way, and you wanted to marry, it would hurt me a little,—­maybe a lot,—­but I should never forget that agreement we made, a sort of two weeks’ notice clause, like people have in contracts.