DICK: Claire darling, I wish you wouldn't say those startling things. You do get away with it, but I confess it gives me a shock--and really, it's unwise. CLAIRE: Haven't you learned that the best place to hide is in the truth? (_as_ HARRY _returns_) Why won't you believe me, Harry, when I tell you the truth--about doors being locked? HARRY: Claire, it's selfish of you to keep us from eating salt just because you don't eat salt. CLAIRE: (_with one of her swift changes_) Oh, Harry! Try your egg without salt. Please--please try it without salt! (_an intensity which seems all out of proportion to the subject_) HARRY: An egg demands salt. CLAIRE: 'An egg demands salt.' Do you know, Harry, why you are such an unseasoned person? 'An egg demands salt.' HARRY: Well, it doesn't always get it. CLAIRE: But your spirit gets no lift from the salt withheld. HARRY: Not an inch of lift. (_going back to his breakfast_) CLAIRE: And pleased--so pleased with itself, for getting no lift. Sure, it is just the right kind of spirit--because it gets no lift. (_more brightly_) But, Dick, you must have tried your egg without salt. DICK: I'll try it now. (_he goes to the breakfast table_) CLAIRE: You must have tried and tried things. Isn't that the way one leaves the normal and gets into the byways of perversion? HARRY: Claire. DICK: (_pushing back his egg_) If so, I prefer to wait for the salt. HARRY: Claire, there is a _limit_. CLAIRE: Precisely what I had in mind. To perversion too there is a limit. So--the fortifications are unassailable. If one ever does get out, I suppose it is--quite unexpectedly, and perhaps--a bit terribly. HARRY: Get out where? CLAIRE: (_with a bright smile_) Where you, darling, will never go. HARRY: And from which you, darling, had better beat it. CLAIRE: I wish I could. (_to herself_) No--no I don't either (_Again this troubled thing turns her to the plant. She puts by themselves the two which_ ANTHONY _covered with paper bags. Is about to remove these papers_. HARRY _strikes a match_.) CLAIRE: (_turning sharply_) You can't smoke here. The plants are not used to it. HARRY: Then I should think smoking would be just the thing for them. CLAIRE: There is design. HARRY: (_to_ DICK) Am I supposed to be answered? I never can be quite sure at what moment I am answered. (_They both watch_ CLAIRE, _who has uncovered the plants and is looking intently into the flowers. From a drawer she takes some tools. Very carefully gives the rose pollen to an unfamiliar flower--rather wistfully unfamiliar, which stands above on a small shelf near the door of the inner room_.) DICK: What is this you're doing, Claire? CLAIRE: Pollenizing. Crossing for fragrance. DICK: It's all rather mysterious, isn't it? HARRY: And Claire doesn't make it any less so. CLAIRE: Can I make life any less mysterious? HARRY: If you know what you are doing, why can't you tell Dick? DICK: Never mind. After all, why should I be told? (_he turns away_)