Joe Give me a hand and I’ll go with you.

Tom (amazed) What! You’re going to get up already?

Joe She’s crying, isn’t she?

Tom She’s crying. Worse than ever now.

Joe I thought the toys would stop her.

Tom I’ve seen you sit in one place from four in the morning till two the next morning.

Joe At my best, Tom, I don’t travel by foot. That’s all. Come on. Give me a hand. I’ll find some way to stop her from crying.

Tom (helping Joe) Joe, I never did tell you. You’re a different kind of a guy.

Joe (swiftly, a little angry) Don’t be silly. I don’t understand things. I’m trying to understand them.

Joe is a little drunk. They go out together. The lights go down slowly, while Wesley plays the piano, and come up slowly on:

Act Three

A cheap bed in Nick’s to indicate Room 21 of the New York Hotel, upstairs, around the corner from Nick’s. The bed can be at the centre of Nick’s, or upon the little stage. Everything in Nick’s is the same, except that all the people are silent, immobile and in darkness, except Wesley who is playing the piano softly and sadly. Kitty Duval, in a dress she has carried around with her from the early days in Ohio, is seated on the bed, tying a ribbon in her hair. She looks at herself in a hand mirror. She is deeply grieved at the change she sees in herself. She takes off the ribbon, angry and hurt. She lifts a book from the bed and tries to read. She begins to sob again. She picks up an old picture of herself and looks at it. Sobs harder than ever, falling on the bed and burying her face. There is a knock, as if at the door.

Kitty (sobbing) Who is it?

Tom’s voice Kitty, it’s me. Tom. Me and Joe.

Joe, followed by Tom, comes to the bed quietly. Joe is holding a rather large toy carousel. He studies Kitty a moment. He sets the toy carousel on the floor, at the foot of Kitty’s bed.

Tom (standing over Kitty and bending down close to her) Don’t cry any more, Kitty.

Kitty (not looking, sobbing) I don’t like this life.

Joe starts the carousel which makes a strange, sorrowful, tinkling music. The music begins slowly, becomes swift, gradually slows down and ends.

Joe himself is interested in the toy, watches and listens to it carefully.

Tom (eagerly) Kitty. Joe got up from his chair at Nick’s just to get you a toy and come here. This one makes music. We rode all over town in a cab to get it. Listen.

Kitty sits up slowly, listening, while Tom watches her. Everything happens slowly and sombrely. Kitty notices the photograph of herself when she was a little girl. Lifts it, and looks at it again.

Tom (looking) Who’s that little girl, Kitty?

Kitty That’s me. When I was seven.