KEN. It takes love.--That's what love is. [_He goes to door._] That's what it does to a man. [_Pause. The room is deathly quiet._] And when I was a boy I used to wonder why some of the world's wisest men hung out with whores. CURTAIN ACT III _Same. Several hours later, about 10 P. M._ TED _is sitting in a corner with a book, but unable to concentrate. He is wretchedly unhappy and jumpy._ LAURA _paces back and forth._ MARTIN _sits at a table with a pencil, sketching, evidently using_ TED, _whose face is exposed to him in profile, as a model._ _There is an air of tense, long waiting. Little is said, and then spoken in quick and jerky tempo, with long pauses_. LAURA. If I only knew where he was. MARTIN. He's best alone, wherever he is--until he gets ready to come home. [_Silence._] LAURA. If I knew he was all right! MARTIN. He's all right. [_Silence,_ LAURA _sits down apart from the others_, TED _rises and crosses to her. She does not look at him. He speaks haltingly._] TED. Laura. Is there anything I can do? I am very sorry, very sorry it happened. LAURA. [_Without looking up._] What good does that do now? You did it. TED. Yes, I did it. To say that he provoked me till I was crazed with shame and anger does not undo it. That is true. LAURA. All right, it's true. What he told you about yourself you already knew. Everybody knew it. It was nothing but words and made no real difference in your life. But you told him something about himself that makes all the difference in the world--and has ruined his life and mine. [_She rises._] TED. I admit all that. LAURA. [_Near hysteria._] Well, then, shut up! [_To escape from him she goes into kitchen._] MARTIN. [_Dryly, as he shades drawing._] The lady, it seems, would have been quite satisfied if you had merely called her husband a traitor to his country, a robber of blind widows, a bombastic egotist, a thieving son-of-a-'bitch and a cock-eyed liar. TED. [_Humorlessly._] It wasn't what I called him. It was what I told him. MARTIN. Precisely. The greater the truth the greater the libel. Ken Holden, you see, wanted to be an adult lion among the little monkeys, and you informed him that he was still an infant drawing sustenance from parental sources. TED. [_Sensing_ MARTIN'S _friendliness approaches him like a friendless dog._] You understand, don't you, how he provoked me? MARTIN. Perfectly. TED. [_Sees sketch._] Why, that's me you're drawing! MARTIN. Glad you recognized it. Some people don't recognize themselves in profile. TED. It's a good profile. The face is good.--But why the uniform? MARTIN. Clothes make the man. I wanted to see if a uniform would make a soldier. TED. I never wore a uniform. I detest them. I'd rather be shot than wear one. MARTIN. That's an old Spanish custom. TED. Spanish? MARTIN. Custom. To shoot men who do not like to wear uniforms. TED. But why do you draw me as a soldier? What did I do to suggest that? What made you do it?