KEN.  What’s the matter with her?

LAURA.  Nothing.

[KEN hands sugar to TIPPY and returns.]

KEN.  She didn’t act like it was nothing.

LAURA.  She’s going to leave Ted.

KEN.  Good!  The man’s a leech.

LAURA.  But he is so helpless.

KEN.  He won’t starve.  We have no jobs in America, but we don’t starve.

LAURA.  Ken, are you in trouble?

KEN.  In trouble?

LAURA.  With your father?

KEN.  No.  No, indeed—­I merely sent dad’s check back.  It’s time, don’t you think? [With elaborate unconcern.] And as for this arrangement here ... we’re getting on each other’s nerves.  And Tippy ought to get out on his own.

LAURA.  And you?

KEN.  I, too.  On my own.

LAURA.  But how?

KEN.  I don’t know.  But I’ll manage somehow.

LAURA.  Oh, Ken ...

KEN.  Why don’t you clear out like Kate?  Forget me.  I’m no good to you.  I never will be.

LAURA.  Don’t talk like that.

KEN.  It’s true, Laura.  Face it. [She puts her arms around him.]

LAURA.  Ken, let’s get married.—­We’ve put it off too long.

KEN.  Married!

LAURA.  Not married then.  But let’s be together.  Let’s ...

KEN.  It’s too late for that.  If that was what we’d wanted it would have happened three years ago.

LAURA.  I love you more now than I did then.

KEN.  And I’m not saying I love you less.

LAURA.  Then?

KEN.  In the last three years I’ve seen a man I used to love and respect degenerate under my eyes, become a lousy parasite, living off a woman whose whole income isn’t enough for her to live on decently.

LAURA.  How can you compare yourself to Ted?

KEN.  Good God, I don’t!  Yet Ted was once all right.

LAURA.  Ted expected the world to support him.  He had nothing to give it.  You have ability and ambition.  You want to give things to the world.

KEN. [Flatly.] I want a job.

LAURA.  Of course you do, darling!

KEN. [Fiercely.] That’s all I want.  A job.  I lay awake nights, saying over and over, “I want a job, a job, a job ...”

LAURA.  Oh, I know!

KEN.  I don’t think about you when I lie awake at night.  I don’t think how nice it would be to have you there in my arms.  All I think about is a job.  If it were a choice between you and a job I’d take the job.—­What’s the use of kidding ourselves any longer? [She is silent.  He goes on desperately.] I’m not the same fellow I was three years ago.  People slam doors in my face.  Do you understand?  They look at me.  They see my clothes, my eyes....  They’re antagonized before they speak to me,—­just as people are to a beggar.  They say “no” before I ask for anything.  No, no, no.  They say it as if I were asking for charity instead of a job.  “Nothing for you.”  “Sorry.”  “Nothing today.”—­It makes a beggar out of you!