BABE: Swell!

LINDA: How can I know—

MITCH: What?

LINDA: If Wescott gives Jim a break?

BABE: You’d stick with him, kid. You’d be all right.

MITCH: Say, it’s a cinch. We’ll phone the station and reserve your berth. Yeah, a compartment.

BABE: We’ll have a real celebration tonight. We’ll have a time!

MITCH: Back on the road with the Duchess!

LINDA: You go too fast for me.

MITCH: Yeah! Back on the road.

BABE: Take it easy, Mitch.

LINDA: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

MITCH: Those pictures are no good. They ain’t got anything!

BABE: Say, kid, how’ll we know about this Wescott deal—if it goes through or not? Will you give us a ring?

MITCH: No time for that. Give us the old Bronx semaphore.

BABE: What’s that?

MITCH: Honey, that’s what got me out of many a tight spot before you and me started going steady! Look! It’s like this. The dame goes to the window and if the coast is clear she hoists the shade like this—that means she’s going, or I’m coming, as the case may be—

BABE: The Voice of Experience!

MITCH: Get it, Duchess? But if it’s no go—if the old man’s on the spot—pull the shade all the way down, like this; that means the game is called on account of rain—or something. Get the idea?

BABE: I getcha.

MITCH: Let’s run through the routine. We don’t want any slip-ups on this.

LINDA: Up if I’m going—down if I’m not—is that it?

MITCH: Smart girl! We’ll be back in half an hour.

BABE: Keep your chin up, Duchess. So long!

[Mitch and Babe leave. The stage is darkened for a moment to indicate the passing of about fifteen minutes. Linda is still standing by the window. Footsteps are heard slowly climbing the stairs.]

LINDA [turning from window, her eyes wide with emotion]: JIM!

[The door is pushed open and Jim comes in. He stands in the doorway without speaking, a dazed look on his face, the canvases sagging from under his arm.]

LINDA: Oh, JIM—your pictures—they’re all wet!

JIM [laughing bitterly]: All wet? Yes! All wet! [Tosses them roughly to floor.] That’s what Wescott said about them—all wet! [Tosses soaked hat into corner of the room.] Only he didn’t put it quite so bluntly. Oh, he was very genteel about it. Used a lot of high-sounding language. Talked about planes of consciousness and aesthetic values. All the usual tripe. Shook his head very sadly and said he feared the world wasn’t ready quite yet for my kind of art. Go back to school, he said, and master your technique. You’re still just a boy. You’ve got years and years, he said. Years and years of what? I asked him. Starvation? He laughed. He said I was taking it much too hard—Oh, Linda! [He throws himself down on the couch.] I’m so terribly disgusted with things!

[As he cries her name Linda stretches her arms toward him and a look of tenderness comes over her face. She feels that he needs her now.]