summersaults under you. That’s the stuff ’ll put iron in your blood, eh Kate?
Mrs. Mayo—[Indignantly.] What are you trying to do, Dick Scott—frighten me out of my senses? If you can’t say anything cheerful, you’d better keep still.
Scott—Don’t take on, Kate. I was only joshin’ him and you.
Mrs. Mayo—You have strange notions of what’s a joke, I must say! [She notices Robert’s nervous uneasiness.] You look all worked up over something, Robbie. What is it?
Robert—[Swallowing hard, looks quickly from one to the other of them—then begins determinedly.] Yes, there is something—something I must tell you—all of you. [As he begins to talk Andrew enters quietly from the rear, closing the door behind him, and setting the lighted lantern on the floor. He remains standing by the door, his arms folded, listening to Robert with a repressed expression of pain on his face. Robert is so much taken up with what he is going to say that he does not notice Andrew’s presence.] Something I discovered only this evening—very beautiful and wonderful—something I did not take into consideration previously because I hadn’t dared to hope that such happiness could ever come to me. [Appealingly.] You must all remember that fact, won’t you?
Mayo—[Frowning.] Let’s get to the point, son.
Robert—You were offended because you thought
