CLAIRE: (_with difficulty, drawing herself back from the fascination of the precipice_) You think I can't smash anything? You think life can't break up, and go outside what it was? Because you've gone dead in the form in which you found yourself, you think that's all there is to the whole adventure? And that is called sanity. And made a virtue--to lock one in. You never worked with things that grow! Things that take a sporting chance--go mad--that sanity mayn't lock them in--from life untouched--from life--that waits, (_she turns toward the inner room_) Breath of Life. (_she goes in there_) HARRY: Oh, I wish Claire wouldn't be strange like that, (_helplessly_) What is it? What's the matter? DICK: It's merely the excess of a particularly rich temperament. HARRY: But it's growing on her. I sometimes wonder if all this (_indicating the place around him_) is a good thing. It would be all right if she'd just do what she did in the beginning--make the flowers as good as possible of their kind. That's an awfully nice thing for a woman to do--raise flowers. But there's something about this--changing things into other things--putting things together and making queer new things--this-- DICK: Creating? HARRY: Give it any name you want it to have--it's unsettling for a woman. They say Claire's a shark at it, but what's the good of it, if it gets her? What is the good of it, anyway? Suppose we can produce new things. Lord--look at the one ones we've got. (_looks outside; turns back_) Heavens, what a noise the wind does make around this place, (_but now it is not all the wind, but_ TOM EDGEWORTHY, _who is trying to let himself in at the locked door, their backs are to him_) I want my _egg_. You can't eat an egg without salt. I must say I don't get Claire lately. I'd like to have Charlie Emmons see her--he's fixed up a lot of people shot to pieces in the war. Claire needs something to tone her nerves _up_. You think it would irritate her? DICK: She'd probably get no little entertainment out of it. HARRY: Yes, dog-gone her, she would. (TOM _now takes more heroic measures to make himself heard at the door_) Funny--how the wind can fool you. Now by not looking around I could imagine--why, I could imagine anything. Funny, isn't it, about imagination? And Claire says I haven't got any! DICK: It would make an amusing drawing--what the wind makes you think is there. (_first makes forms with his hands, then levelling the soil prepared by_ ANTHONY, _traces lines with his finger_) Yes, really--quite jolly. (TOM, _after a moment of peering in at them, smiles, goes away._) HARRY: You're another one of the queer ducks, aren't you? Come now--give me the dirt. Have you queer ones really got anything--or do you just put it over on us that you have? DICK: (_smiles, draws on_) Not saying anything, eh? Well, I guess you're wise there. If you keep mum--how are we going to prove there's nothing there? DICK: I don't keep mum. I draw.