Can’t you see your husband couldn’t rescue you from an abstraction? MARIE But I didn’t want to be rescued. I wanted to marry Penny! TOM And I was tickled to death to get rid of her. MARIE Yes. It meant release for us both to be ourselves. GRANT But, Robinson, you _had_ to rescue her. She was the leading lady. The manager pays her five hundred dollars a week to marry the star. MARIE Well, she earns it. GRANT She earns it because she draws. TOM (_Surprised_) Does she paint, too? GRANT She draws that much money into the box office. TOM Money, money! How that runs through your talk. MARIE (_Referring to_ TOM) I wish to heaven it had run through his. TOM (_Lifting his voice angrily_) I was above such things. I am an artist. Money! Money! I see red when I hear that word. Money! Money! The curse of true art. GRANT (_Pointing to his wife’s door_) Please, please; not so loud. You’ll wake the baby. MARIE (_With a poignant cry_) Oh! GRANT What’s the matter with you? MARIE I forgot all about that. You also took my baby away from me in THE SAND BAR. TOM So far as I was concerned that was the only decent thing you did. I had to make money for the child. MARIE Have you forgotten that was the other reason I left him? He didn’t love our child: it was in his way. TOM Love a mewling, puking child? Not much. GRANT (_Trying to calm her as she walks up and down_) Sh! Control yourself. MARIE My love for the child was the only decent thing about me. GRANT But I gave you other virtues. I made you love your husband. MARIE If I _had_ to love my husband in your revised version couldn’t I at least have kept my child? GRANT Don’t be unreasonable. No leading lady wants a child. MARIE So you took it away to please the leading lady! GRANT Can’t you understand if I’d given her a child it would have complicated matters? TOM You’re right. It certainly complicated matters for me. GRANT (_Trying to explain_) I wanted the struggle to be a simple one between two men and a woman. A child would have been a side-issue. MARIE You call my child a side-issue! (_Looking at_ TOM.) Hasn’t his father anything to say to that? TOM (_To_ GRANT) She can’t get me excited about that brat. It stood in my way. I’d have killed it myself if necessary. MARIE (_To_ GRANT) But _you_ killed it instead. GRANT (_Losing patience_) Yes. I killed it for the same reason he would have: because it would have stood in the way of the play’s success. Are you a couple of fools? Can’t you both get into your heads I was writing a play to make money? TOM Money! Money again! MARIE (_Astonished as she comes to_ GRANT) So you killed it for money? GRANT Yes. Just as I changed you both for money. TOM If you’d killed it for art I would have understood. But to kill a creature for money! You are a murderer! MARIE (_Sneering_) And how much blood money will you get for what you have done? GRANT A thousand dollars a week! MARIE (_Overcome_)