KEN.  You bet you ...

TED. You’d rather eat Salvation Army bean soup than go on living off your father, too.

KEN.  Sure.  So I got out and got a job.

TED. A job.  What kind of a job? [Hysterically.] Who got that job for you?  Who is paying your salary?

KEN.  Ah, you’re crazy!

TED. I’ll tell you who got you that job and I’ll tell you who’s paying your salary.  Your father.

KEN, You’re a god-damned liar.

[MARTIN and LAURA enter, their arms laden with bundles.]

TED. Prescott is just a go-between.  It’s your father who’s paying your salary!

LAURA. [In horror.] Ted!

TED. Ask her.  She knows.  It was her idea.—­If I’m a pimp, what does that make you? [Takes his hat and coat, brushes by her and streaks out.]

KEN. [Unconvincingly.] He’s crazy.  He’s—­crazy.

[Silence, LAURA leans against the table, as though she had difficulty in breathing, TIPPY enters, apron on, egg beater in hand.]

TIPPY.  Hello.  You back? [Takes groceries.] What’s up? [No answer.] Where’s Ted? [No answer.]

KEN. [To LAURA.] What are you whimpering about? [Seizes her by the arms.] It’s true.  What he said was true, wasn’t it? [She tries to speak, but cannot.] Who got my job for me?  Who is paying my salary?  Answer me!

LAURA.  Your father.

KEN.  My father!  How could he do such a thing?

LAURA.  It was my idea.  I—­I told him to do it.

KEN.  You.  You did that to me.

LAURA.  I wanted to help you.

KEN.  It takes a woman to do a thing like that.

LAURA.  I loved you.

KEN.  It takes love.—­That’s what love is. [He goes to door.] That’s what it does to a man. [Pause.  The room is deathly quiet.] And when I was a boy I used to wonder why some of the world’s wisest men hung out with whores.

CURTAIN

ACT III

Same.  Several hours later, about 10 P. M. TED is sitting in a corner with a book, but unable to concentrate.  He is wretchedly unhappy and jumpy.

LAURA paces back and forth.

MARTIN sits at a table with a pencil, sketching, evidently using TED, whose face is exposed to him in profile, as a model.

There is an air of tense, long waiting.  Little is said, and then spoken in quick and jerky tempo, with long pauses.

LAURA.  If I only knew where he was.

MARTIN.  He’s best alone, wherever he is—­until he gets ready to come home.

[Silence.]

LAURA.  If I knew he was all right!

MARTIN.  He’s all right.

[Silence, LAURA sits down apart from the others, TED rises and crosses to her.  She does not look at him.  He speaks haltingly.]