LAURA.  And Ted?

KATE. [Bitterly.] What about him?

LAURA.  You love him.

KATE.  No, I don’t, I used to love him....  But I don’t any more.  You can’t stay crazy about a man when you give him half your salary every week.  You get to hate him....  Oh, it’s worse than hate.  It’s contempt.

LAURA.  You’ve stuck it out so long.

KATE.  Too long.

LAURA.  It’ll be different as soon as he strikes something.

KATE.  Strikes what?  Gold or oil?

LAURA.  He’ll find something.  It takes time.

KATE.  Time is the only thing I haven’t got to spare.  Look, I’m twenty-seven.

LAURA.  But you don’t look it.

KATE.  I do—­I have wrinkles.

LAURA.  Don’t be silly.

KATE.  Around the eyes.

LAURA.  You’re imagining.

KATE.  And yesterday I found a gray hair.

LAURA.  Girls of eighteen sometimes have gray hairs.

KATE.  But I feel old!  And if I don’t look it now, I will soon. [Pause.] What am I to do, Laura?  Keep on working at eighteen dollars a week till I’m forty?—­I haven’t a decent thing to wear.  I haven’t had a new coat in three years. [Feverishly.] And I’m frightened.  Calendars frighten me.—­I want to have some fun.  I want a man to take me to the Ritz and—­pay the check.

LAURA.  I know how you feel.  Don’t you think that I ...  What do you want me to say, Kate?

KATE.  There is nothing to say.

LAURA.  Look, dear.  I don’t say you should keep Ted.  Drop him and go it alone a while.  If you’ve been living on nine dollars a week, eighteen will seem a fortune.

KATE.  And what will become of him?

LAURA.  If you are leaving him you can’t worry about that.

KATE.  I do worry about it.  That’s one of the reasons I’ll take the old man and his money.

LAURA.  You’re crazy!

KATE.  Am I?

LAURA.  That’s something that—­that just isn’t done!

KATE.  A lot you know.

LAURA.  Kate ...

KATE.  Oh, stop it!  That just isn’t done!  You don’t know anything.  You don’t even know how I feel ... week after week giving Ted money.  You’ve been in love with a man whose fond papa’s supported him so you haven’t had to soil your lovely ethics with dirty money.

LAURA.  Darling ...

KATE.  Don’t darling me.  And don’t tell me what’s decent and proper—­and what isn’t done!

LAURA.  I didn’t mean ...

KATE.  You didn’t mean anything because you don’t know anything.  But maybe you’re going to learn.—­Maybe now you’re going to learn because this gang is breaking up.  Not only because my man is a dead-bent, but because yours is broke.—­So now maybe you’ll try keeping a man and see how it feels!

LAURA.  Kate!

[KATE slams out, brushing KEN, who enters, violently aside.]