STERLING.  You?

RUTH.  No!  Why should you!

STERLING.  Yes!  Why not?  They might keep silent for her!

BLANCHE.  I would do it for my boy’s sake.  Yes, I’ll go.

STERLING. Yes! You go, Blanche.

RUTH.  No, you shan’t go—­you shan’t humiliate yourself in his place!

MASON.  Certainly not; and if your husband is willing, we are not willing! He must go.

BLANCHE.  But if he won’t?

MASON.  He must!

RUTH.  You must demand his going, Blanche, and I demand it, too, as something due to me.

BLANCHE.  Very well.  I demand it.  Will you go?

[A moment’s silence.

WARDEN.  Why don’t you speak? [He presses the electric button and all the lights come on. STERLING is at the doorway at back, about to steal out.  There is an exclamation aloud from all of surprise and disgust.  The clock strikes the quarter; WARDEN catches hold of STERLING’S arm.] What’s your hurry, Dick?  There goes the quarter hour; you could never catch the eleven-twenty.

STERLING.  Damn you!

[Facing WARDEN squarely, as

THE CURTAIN FALLS QUICKLY

ACT III

At “The Hermitage,” on the Bronx River, the next afternoon.  The house is on the Left, and on the Right and at the back are the green lattice arches.  Snow lies thick everywhere, on the benches at the Right and on the little iron table beside it, on the swing between two trees at the Right, in the red boxes of dead shrubs, on the rocks and dried grass of a “rookery” in the centre, and on the branches of the trees. CLARA comes out from the house, followed by TROTTER.

CLARA.  Come on and let mama rest awhile—­naturally she’s excited and tired out, being married so suddenly and away from home. [She stops beside the swing, taking hold of its side rope with her hand.] It isn’t every mother who can elope without her oldest child’s consent and have her youngest daughter for a bridesmaid.

[Laughing.

TROTTER.  I hope Mrs. Sterling will forgive me.  Perhaps she will when she sees how my money can help your mother and me to get right in with all the smarties!

CLARA.  Oh, don’t you be too sure about your getting in; it isn’t as easy as the papers say!  But, anyway, that wouldn’t make any difference to Blanche.  She was never a climber like mama and me.  I suppose that’s why she is asked to all sorts of houses through Aunt Ruth that wouldn’t let mama and me even leave our cards on the butler!

TROTTER.  I thought your mother could go anywhere she liked.

CLARA.  Oh, no, she couldn’t! if she made you think that, it was only a jolly!  Blanche is the only one of us who really went everywhere.  Come along, “Poppa,” give me a swing!  I haven’t had one for years!