EILEEN (helplessly). Never mind telling her, then. I'll write to her.
CARMODY. You'd better not. Leave her alone. She'll not wish you mixin' in with her work and tellin' her how to do it.
EILEEN (aghast). Her work! (She seems at the end of her tether—wrung too dry for any further emotion. She kisses her father at the door with indifference and speaks calmly.) Good-bye, father.
CARMODY (in a whining tone of injury). A cold kiss! And never a small tear out of her! Is your heart a stone? (Drunken tears well from his eyes and he blubbers.) And your own father going back to a lone house with a stranger in it!
EILEEN (wearily, in a dead voice). You'll miss your train, father.
CARMODY (raging in a second). I'm off, then! Come on, Fred. It's no welcome we have with her here in this place—and a great curse on this day I brought her to it! (He stamps out.)
EILEEN (in the same dead tone). Good-bye, Fred.
NICHOLLS (repenting his words of a moment ago—confusedly). I'm sorry, Eileen—for what I said. I didn't mean—you know what your father is—excuse me, won't you?
EILEEN (without feeling). Yes.
NICHOLLS. And I'll be out soon—in a week if I can make it. Well then,—good-bye for the present. (He bends down as if to kiss her, but she shrinks back out of his reach.)