ACT IV.
Scene: Gilchrist's Room—"Upstairs."
Two months later.
The room is cheerful. That is its chief aspect. Cheerful, and comfortable, and homelike. Such a room ... in the rear of the fourth story ... might be had anywhere for seven dollars a week, and its contents duplicated for a couple of hundred, yet no one should be able to look in without envying the occupant. Before the warm glow of a fireplace down R. is a big, brown leather-covered armchair. An electric lamp stands on a table stage left of the chair and squarely opposite the fireplace. There are books on the table, too, and writing things, and another chair on its left. Above the grate a picture of Christ in the Temple. Conspicuous in the flat, and visible from all parts of the house, a big studio window. There are cream-colored outside curtains, and brown denim inside curtains, drawn now, but when they are pulled aside, one sees chimney-pots, and roof-tops, and a blue night-sky, with one particularly bright star. Up L., a curtained arch into a hall bedroom, and down L. a door. The walls, covered with old-gold grass-cloth, are hidden, to a height of six feet, by roughly-built bookcases, filled with much-used books. A sofa, against the wall L., now holds numerous packages. There is a brown-and-tan grass rug on the floor, and there may be a window seat, with brown cushions, beneath the window. The furniture is all old ... probably second-hand ... but, as aforesaid, the room suggests comfort and peace.
At Rise: It is just after eight o'clock, Christmas Eve, 1920. Daniel is discovered, dreaming, in the armchair R., a pipe in his mouth and his face to the fire. He has not lighted the desk lamp, and, except for the glow of the embers, the room is in darkness. Hanging over the left arm of the chair, Daniel's hand holds a magazine, but he has not begun reading. After a pause long enough for the audience to take in his surroundings, there is a light tap at the door and, without waiting for a response, Mary Margaret enters. She walks without crutches—quite briskly—but plainly is on some secret business. Daniel is lost in the darkness. A package in her hand, Mary Margaret crosses quickly to the table, and turns on one and then the other of the two lights in the lamp. Instantly, of course, she sees the figure in the chair, and conceals the package beneath her apron.
Mary Margaret
Mr. Gilchrist? [He shows himself] Goo'ness, how you scared me! I thought you went out!
Daniel
No; I just slipped up here to read a while before we put our gifts on the tree.... Where's Grubby?