and slowly walks over to her, looking
down at her. Then, bending still lower, she begins to cry._]

GIBSON: Well, Nora, what was the matter with it?

NORA [_not looking up_]: I don't know. What was?

GIBSON: You needed a manager to do what I had been doing.

NORA: Couldn't we have learned? Couldn't one of us?

GIBSON: One of you did--Hill.

NORA: But he left!

GIBSON: Why did Hill leave?

NORA: Other people offered him more money.

GIBSON: Yes; he was the one man that all the rest of you depended on. He
was worth more.

NORA: But were you worth all that you took? You took all that the
business made.

GIBSON: Yes; and last year it was fifty thousand.

NORA: Were you actually worth that much to it?

GIBSON: Other men in the business think so. [_Shows her a letter._]
Here's an offer from the Coles-Hibbard people, out in Cleveland, of that
much salary to do for them what I did here.

NORA: It isn't right; you pay labour only what you have to pay.

GIBSON: The Coles-Hibbard people offer to pay me what they'd have to,
and they're pretty hard-headed men. The whole world pays only what it
has to.

NORA: It isn't right! It isn't right!

GIBSON: Last winter I saw you in a three-dollar seat listening to
Caruso. Have you ever given that much to the organ grinder who comes
under these windows?

NORA: Will it always be so?

GIBSON: I don't know. But it's so now.

NORA: But will the plan _always_ fail?

GIBSON: I think it will until human beings are as near alike as the ants
and bees are. Your system is in full effect with them, but we--we
strive; even in this fellowship here of yours the striving began to
show.

NORA [_looking up at him appealingly_]: But are these inequalities
_right_?

GIBSON [_gently, rather sadly_]: I don't know. I only know what is.

NORA: Well--I'm whipped.

[_Smiles ruefully, away from him; then she turns again to
him._]

Are you going to accept that offer?

GIBSON: What do you say?

[_Her head droops again. Angry voices are heard, growing louder
as they approach. The door is thrown open, and the members of
the committee, noisily talking, appear in the doorway._]

FRANKEL: It was a bum deal all through!

SHOMBERG: Shovin' his run-down factory off onto us!

RILEY [_fiercely_]: You never give us no deed to this plant, Mr. Gibson!

SIMPSON: They ain't a court in the land'll hold us to it!

CARTER: No, sir; and we've voted this is your fact