[“Laura Haven’t you Ever Liked Some Boy?” On the dark stage the screen is lighted with the image of blue roses.]

[Gradually LAURA’s figure becomes apparent and the screen goes out. The music subsides. LAURA is seated in the delicate ivory chair at the small claw-foot table. She wears a dress of soft violet material for a kimono – her hair tied back from her forehead with a ribbon. She is washing and polishing her collection of glass. AMANDA appears on the fire-escape steps. At the sound of her ascent, LAURA catches her breath, thrusts the bowl of ornaments away and seats herself stiffly before the diagram of the typewriter keyboard as though it held her spellbound. Something has happened to AMANDA. It is written in her face as she climbs to the landing: a look that is grim and hopeless and a little absurd.

She has on one of those cheap or imitation velvety-looking cloth coats with imitation fur collar. Her hat is five or six years old, one of those dreadful cloche hats that were worn in the late twenties and she is eloping an enormous black patent-leather pocketbook with nickel clasps and initials. This is her full-dress outfit, the one she usually wears to the D.A.R.

LAURA: Hello, Mother, I was – [She makes a nervous gesture toward the chart on the Wall. AMANDA leans against the shut door and stares at LAURA with a martyred look.]

AMANDA: Deception? Deception?[She slowly removes her hat and gloves, continuing the sweet suffering stare. She lets the hat and gloves fall on the floor – a bit of acting.]

LAURA [shakily]: How was the DAR. meeting? [AMANDA slowly opens her purse and removes a dainty white handkerchief which she shakes out delicately and delicately touches to her lips and nostrils.] Didn’t you go to the DAR. meeting, Mother?