MARGARET Hadn’t the power to hold Craig! LAURA She didn’t want to--I suppose your scoffing means. Well, she should have wanted to. It’s what a wife should want to do. MARGARET Oh, Laura, Bernice will never say one more word for herself! In there. Alone. Still. She will not do one new thing to--to throw a light back on other things. That’s death. A _leaving_ of one’s life. Leaving it--with us. I cannot talk to you about what Bernice “should have been.” What she was came true and deep from--[_Throwing out her hands as if giving up saying it. Taking it up again._] It’s true there was something in her Craig did not control. Something he couldn’t _mess up_. There was something in her he might have drawn from and become bigger than he was. But he’s vain. He has to be bowling some one over all the time--to show that he has _power_. LAURA I don’t agree with you that Craig is especially vain. He’s a man. He does want to affect--yes, dominate the woman he loves. And if Bernice didn’t give him that feeling of-- MARGARET Supremacy. LAURA There’s no use trying to talk with you of personal things. Certainly I don’t want to quarrel tonight. That would not be the thing. [_In a new tone._] How is your work going? I don’t quite know what you are doing now, but trying to get some one out of prison, I suppose? MARGARET Yes; I am trying to get out of prison all those people who are imprisoned for ideas. LAURA I see. MARGARET I doubt if you see, Laura. LAURA Well I don’t say I sympathize. But I see. MARGARET No; for if you did see, you would have to sympathize. If you did see, you would be ashamed; you would have to--hang your head for this thing of locking any man up because of what his mind sees. If thinking is not to become--whatever thinking may become!--then why are we here at all? [_She stops and thinks of it._] Why does Bernice--her death--make that so simple tonight? Because she was herself. She had the gift for being herself. And she wanted each one to have the chance to be himself. Anything else hurt her--as it hurt her to see a dog tied, or a child at a narrow window. LAURA I don’t think Bernice was a very good wife for a writer. MARGARET She would have been a wonderful wife for a real writer. LAURA Oh, I know she didn’t value Craig’s work. And that’s another thing. And I suppose you don’t value it either. [_She looks at MARGARET, who does not speak._] Fortunately there are many thousands of people in this country who do value it. And I suppose you think what I do of little value too. I suppose you scoff at those things we do to put cripples back in life. MARGARET