A ROUGH. Give 'im another! A VOICE. No! A GIRL'S VOICE. Let 'im alone! Come on, Billy, this ain't no fun! Still looking up at MORE, the whole crowd falls into an uneasy silence, broken only by the shuffling of feet. Then the BIG NAVVY in the front rank turns and elbows his way out to the edge of the crowd. THE NAVVY. Let 'im be! With half-sullen and half-shamefaced acquiescence the crowd breaks up and drifts back whence it came, till the alley is nearly empty. MORE. [As if coming to, out of a trance-wiping his hand and dusting his coat] Well, Steel! And followed by STEEL, he descends the steps and moves away. Two policemen pass glancing up at the broken glass. One of them stops and makes a note. THE CURTAIN FALLS. SCENE II The window-end of KATHERINE'S bedroom, panelled in cream-coloured wood. The light from four candles is falling on KATHERINE, who is sitting before the silver mirror of an old oak dressing-table, brushing her hair. A door, on the left, stands ajar. An oak chair against the wall close to a recessed window is all the other furniture. Through this window the blue night is seen, where a mist is rolled out flat amongst trees, so that only dark clumps of boughs show here and there, beneath a moonlit sky. As the curtain rises, KATHERINE, with brush arrested, is listening. She begins again brushing her hair, then stops, and taking a packet of letters from a drawer of her dressing-table, reads. Through the just open door behind her comes the voice of OLIVE. OLIVE. Mummy! I'm awake! But KATHERINE goes on reading; and OLIVE steals into the room in her nightgown. OLIVE. [At KATHERINE'S elbow--examining her watch on its stand] It's fourteen minutes to eleven. KATHERINE. Olive, Olive! OLIVE. I just wanted to see the time. I never can go to sleep if I try--it's quite helpless, you know. Is there a victory yet? [KATHERINE, shakes her head] Oh! I prayed extra special for one in the evening papers. [Straying round her mother] Hasn't Daddy come? KATHERINE. Not yet. OLIVE. Are you waiting for him? [Burying her face in her mother's hair] Your hair is nice, Mummy. It's particular to-night. KATHERINE lets fall her brush, and looks at her almost in alarm. OLIVE. How long has Daddy been away? KATHERINE. Six weeks. OLIVE. It seems about a hundred years, doesn't it? Has he been making speeches all the time? KATHERINE. Yes. OLIVE. To-night, too? KATHERINE. Yes. OLIVE. The night that man was here whose head's too bald for anything--oh! Mummy, you know--the one who cleans his teeth so termendously--I heard Daddy making a speech to the wind. It broke a wine-glass. His speeches must be good ones, mustn't they! KATHERINE. Very. OLIVE. It felt funny; you couldn't see any wind, you know. KATHERINE. Talking to the wind is an expression, Olive. OLIVE. Does Daddy often? KATHERINE. Yes, nowadays.