MAYO. (reproachfully) You might’ve even not wasted time lookin’ for that one—your last night.
MRS. MAYO. (as if she were speaking to a child) You ought to have worn your coat a sharp night like this, Robbie.
SCOTT. (disgustedly) God A’mighty, Kate, you treat Robert as if he was one year old!
MRS. MAYO. (notices ROBERT’S nervous uneasiness) You look all worked up over something, Robbie. What is it?
ROBERT. (swallowing hard, looks quickly from one to the other of them—then begins determinedly) Yes, there is something—something I must tell you—all of you. (As he begins to talk ANDREW enters quietly from the rear, closing the door behind him, and setting the lighted lantern on the floor. He remains standing by the door, his arms folded, listening to ROBERT with a repressed expression of pain on his face. ROBERT is so much taken up with what he is going to say that he does not notice ANDREW’S presence.) Something I discovered only this evening—very beautiful and wonderful—something I did not take into consideration previously because I hadn’t dared to hope that such happiness could ever come to me. (Appealingly) You must all remember that fact, won’t you?
MAYO. (frowning) Let’s get to the point, son.
ROBERT. (with a trace of defiance) Well, the point is this, Pa: I’m not going—I mean—I can’t go tomorrow with Uncle Dick—or at any future time, either.
MRS. MAYO. (with a sharp sigh of joyful relief) Oh, Robbie, I’m so glad!
MAYO. (astounded) You ain’t serious, be you, Robert? (Severely) Seems to me it’s a pretty late hour in the day for you to be upsettin’ all your plans so sudden!
ROBERT. I asked you to remember that until this evening I didn’t know myself. I had never dared to dream——