RED SWORD (_fiercely_). We must kill what we see. THE WOMAN. But have I not shown you that I am something besides a woman? RED SWORD. You might show us that you are everything, and still I would hate you. Hate is not hate unless it exists for its own sake. THE WOMAN. At last you have spoken the truth. I am everything. And you hate me because you hate me. BLUE FACE. Gentle pickles in a vacillating pink mound. Inkwell is not ink. Ink is not inkwell. Flying postman leathers purple letters. THE WOMAN. But I have reserved my best defence to the last. I am a descendant of Gertrude Stein! RED SWORD. Descendant! What heresy! Gertrude Stein had no descendants. She has ascendants! YELLOW HAT. Deliver the rest of the charge. RED SWORD. Be it known unto you that we are the sole surviving members of the human race. By a process of selection we have killed all except the best stock. You alone remain of the female sex. We charge you not only in your capacity as woman, but in your capacity as mother. In order to prove your right to live, you must justify mankind. We accuse you of being the perpetuator of human beings! Defend yourself! THE WOMAN. You are the sole surviving males? YELLOW HAT. We are. THE WOMAN. Then you may let me live. I shall not perpetuate the race. WHITE HEART. Do not despair; _I_ will marry you! GREEN EARS. Where are your manners? Has not Shaw taught us that women do the wooing? BLUE FACE. What have we to do with Shaw? Let us be serious about frivolous matters. RED SWORD. She is not to be trusted. It is necessary for her to defend the race. Speak, woman! THE WOMAN. Now indeed you have given me a heavy burden. What could be brought forward as a defence for humanity? Why should anything exist? YELLOW HAT. Why, indeed? That is for you to show. For aeons life has perpetuated itself through a mere animal instinct. Yet through all that time consciousness has been growing; will has at last come into the ascendancy. Now for the first time man’s ego is really on the throne. For the first time man, with power to extinguish himself, can demand an adequate reason for his existence. And man is ready to hear the secret of the sphinx. We have come to you, madam, as the last and most perfect woman, as the final manifestation of the eternal mystery, to force you on pain of death to divulge yourself. THE WOMAN. But I thought mankind existed for the purpose of creating the superman. PURPLE HAIR. He did; but now he has created the superman. We are the embodiment of the purpose. What next? BLUE FACE. As futurists we refuse to accept the old answer. If our existence merely pushes the problem forward a few generations, it is futile. If, on the other hand, we are the crowning goal of man’s endeavor, there is no need to create further.