ELIZABETH: (_in her manner of holding the world capably in her hands_) Now let's talk of something else. I hadn't the least idea of making mother feel badly. CLAIRE: (_desperately_) No, we'll go on. Though I don't know--where we'll end. I can't answer for that. These plants--(_beginning flounderingly_) Perhaps they are less beautiful--less sound--than the plants from which they diverged. But they have found--otherness, (_laughs a little shrilly_) If you know--what I mean. TOM: Claire--stop this! (_To_ HARRY) This is wrong. CLAIRE: (_excitedly_) No; I'm going on. They have been shocked out of what they were--into something they were not; they've broken from the forms in which they found themselves. They are alien. Outside. That's it, outside; if you--know what I mean. ELIZABETH: (_not shocked from what she is_) But of course, the object of it all is to make them better plants. Otherwise, what would be the sense of doing it? CLAIRE: (_not reached by_ ELIZABETH) Out there--(_giving it with her hands_) lies all that's not been touched--lies life that waits. Back here--the old pattern, done again, again and again. So long done it doesn't even know itself for a pattern--in immensity. But this--has invaded. Crept a little way into--what wasn't. Strange lines in life unused. And when you make a pattern new you know a pattern's made with life. And then you know that anything may be--if only you know how to reach it. (_this has taken form, not easily, but with great struggle between feeling and words_) HARRY: (_cordially_) Now I begin to get you, Claire. I never knew before why you called it the Edge Vine. CLAIRE: I should destroy the Edge Vine. It isn't--over the edge. It's running, back to--'all the girls'. It's a little afraid of Miss Lane, (_looking sombrely at it_) You are out, but you are not alive. ELIZABETH: Why, it looks all right, mother. CLAIRE: Didn't carry life with it from the life it left. Dick--you know what I mean. At least you ought to. (_her ruthless way of not letting anyone's feelings stand in the way of truth_) Then destroy it for me! It's hard to do it--with the hands that made it. DICK: But what's the point in destroying it, Claire? CLAIRE: (_impatiently_) I've told you. It cannot create. DICK: But you say you can go on producing it, and it's interesting in form. CLAIRE: And you think I'll stop with that? Be shut in--with different life--that can't creep on? (_after trying to put destroying hands upon it_) It's hard to--get past what we've done. Our own dead things--block the way. TOM: But you're doing it this next time, Claire, (_nodding to the inner room_.) In there! CLAIRE: (_turning to that room_) I'm not sure. TOM: But you told me Breath of Life has already produced itself. Doesn't that show it has brought life from the life it left?