GAYNOR (_brutally_). That's your concern. Don't lie about your poverty. You've a steady well-paid job, and plenty of money to throw away on drunken sprees, I'll bet. The weekly fee at the Hill Farm is only seven dollars. You can easily afford that--the price of a few rounds of drinks. CARMODY. Seven dollars! And I'll have to pay a woman to come in--and the four of the children eatin' their heads off! Glory be to God, I'll not have a penny saved for me old age--and then it's the poor-house! GAYNOR (_curtly_). Don't talk nonsense! CARMODY. Ah, doctor, it's the truth I'm tellin' you! GAYNOR. Well, perhaps I can get the Society to pay half for your daughter--if you're really as hard up as you pretend. They're willing to do that where it seems necessary. CARMODY (_brightening_). Ah, Doctor, thank you. GAYNOR (_abruptly_). Then it's all settled? CARMODY (_grudgingly--trying to make the best of it_). I'll do my best for Eileen, if it's needful--and you'll not be tellin' them people about it at all, Doctor? GAYNOR. Not unless you force me to. CARMODY. And they'll pay the half, surely? GAYNOR. I'll see what I can do--for your daughter's sake, not yours, understand! CARMODY. God bless you, Doctor! (_Grumblingly._) It's the whole of it they ought to be payin', I'm thinkin', and them with bags of money. 'Tis them builds the hospitals and why should they be wantin' the poor like me to support them? GAYNOR (_disgustedly_). Bah! (_Abruptly._) I'll telephone to Doctor Stanton to-morrow morning. Then I'll know something definite when I come to see your daughter in the afternoon. CARMODY (_darkly_). You'll be comin' again tomorrow? (_Half to himself._) Leave it to the likes of you to be drainin' a man dry. (Gaynor _has gone out to the hall in rear and does not hear this last remark. There is a loud knock from the outside door. The Doctor comes back into the room carrying his hat and overcoat._) GAYNOR. There's someone knocking. CARMODY. Who'll it be? Ah, it's Fred Nicholls, maybe. (_In a low voice to_ Gaynor _who has started to put on his overcoat._) Eileen's young man, Doctor, that she's engaged to marry, as you might say. GAYNOR (_thoughtfully_). H'mm--yes--she spoke of him. (_As another knock sounds_ Carmody _hurries to the rear._ Gaynor, _after a moments indecision, takes off his overcoat again and sits down. A moment later_ Carmody _re-enters, followed by_ Fred Nicholls, _who has left his overcoat and hat in the hallway._ Nicholls _is a young fellow of twenty-three, stockily built, fair-haired, handsome in a commonplace, conventional mould. His manner is obviously an attempt at suave gentility; he has an easy, taking smile and a ready laugh, but there is a petty, calculating expression in his small, observing, blue eyes. His well-fitting, ready-made clothes are carefully pressed. His whole get-up suggests an attitude of man-about-small-town complacency._)