CLAIRE: (_after looking intently at_ TOM, _and considering it_) But our own spirit is not something on the loose. Mine isn't. It has something to do with what I do. To fly. To be free in air. To look from above on the world of all my days. Be where man has never been! Yes--wouldn't you think the spirit could get the idea? The earth grows smaller. I am leaving. What are they--running around down there? Why do they run around down there? Houses? Houses are funny lines and down-going slants--houses are vanishing slants. I am alone. Can I breathe this rarer air? Shall I go higher? Shall I go too high? I am loose. I am out. But no; man flew, and returned to earth the man who left it. HARRY: And jolly well likely not to have returned at all if he'd had those flighty notions while operating a machine. CLAIRE: Oh, Harry! (_not lightly asked_) Can't you see it would be better not to have returned than to return the man who left it? HARRY: I have some regard for human life. CLAIRE: Why, no--I am the one who has the regard for human life, (_more lightly_) That was why I swiftly divorced my stick-in-the-mud artist and married--the man of flight. But I merely passed from a stick-in-the-mud artist to a-- DICK: Stick-in-the-air aviator? HARRY: Speaking of your stick-in-the-mud artist, as you romantically call your first blunder, isn't his daughter--and yours--due here to-day? CLAIRE: I knew something was disturbing me. Elizabeth. A daughter is being delivered unto me this morning. I have a feeling it will be more painful than the original delivery. She has been, as they quaintly say, educated; prepared for her place in life. HARRY: And fortunately Claire has a sister who is willing to give her young niece that place. CLAIRE: The idea of giving anyone a place in life. HARRY: Yes! The very idea! CLAIRE: Yes! (_as often, the mocking thing gives true expression to what lies sombrely in her_) The war. There was another gorgeous chance. HARRY: Chance for what? I call you, Claire. I ask you to say what you mean. CLAIRE: I don't know--precisely. If I did--there'd be no use saying it. (_at_ HARRY's _impatient exclamation she turns to_ TOM) TOM: (_nodding_) The only thing left worth saying is the thing we can't say. HARRY: Help! CLAIRE: Yes. But the war didn't help. Oh, it was a stunning chance! But fast as we could--scuttled right back to the trim little thing we'd been shocked out of. HARRY: You bet we did--showing our good sense. CLAIRE: Showing our incapacity--for madness. HARRY: Oh, come now, Claire--snap out of it. You're not really trying to say that capacity for madness is a good thing to have? CLAIRE: (_in simple surprise_) Why yes, of course. DICK: But I should say the war did leave enough madness to give you a gleam of hope.