EILEEN (_with a smile_). Is it as bad as that? But weren't there other things in the town--outside your work--that were interesting? MURRAY (_decidedly_). No. Never anything new--and I knew everyone and every thing in town by heart years ago. (_With sudden bitterness._) Oh, it was my own fault. Why didn't I get out of it? Well, I didn't. I was always going to--to-morrow--and to-morrow never came. I got in a rut--and stayed put. People seem to get that way, somehow--in that town. It's in the air. All the boys I grew up with--nearly all, at least--took root in the same way. It took pleurisy, followed by T.B., to blast me loose. EILEEN (_wonderingly_). But--your family--didn't they live there? MURRAY. I haven't much of a family left. My mother died when I was a kid. My father--he was a lawyer--died when I was nineteen, just about to go to college. He left nothing, so I went to work on the paper instead. And there I've been ever since. I've two sisters, respectably married and living in another part of the state. We don't get along--but they are paying for me here, so I suppose I've no kick. (_Cynically._) A family wouldn't have changed things. From what I've seen that blood-thicker-than-water dope is all wrong. It's thinner than table-d'hote soup. You may have seen a bit of that truth in your own case already. EILEEN (_shocked_). How can you say that? You don't know---- MURRAY. Don't I, though? Wait till you've been here three months or four--when the gap you left has been comfortably filled. You'll see then! EILEEN (_angrily, her lips trembling_). You must be crazy to say such things! (_Fighting back her tears._) Oh, I think it's hateful--when you see how badly I feel! MURRAY (_in acute confusion. Stammering_). Look here, Miss Carmody, I didn't mean to---- Listen--don't feel mad at me, please. My tongue ran away with me. I was only talking. I'm like that. You mustn't take it seriously. EILEEN (_still resentful_). I don't see how you can talk. You don't--you can't know about these things--when you've just said you had no family of your own, really. MURRAY (_eager to return to her good graces_). No. Of course I don't know. I was just talking regardless for the fun of listening to it. EILEEN (_after a pause_). Hasn't either of your sisters any children? MURRAY. One of them has--two of them--ugly, squally little brats. EILEEN (_disapprovingly_). You don't like babies? MURRAY (_bluntly_). No. (_Then with a grin at her shocked face._) I don't get them. They're something I can't seem to get acquainted with.