tokehole.

MILDRED--My grandfather was a puddler. He played with boiling steel.

SECOND ENGINEER--[_All at sea--uneasily._] Is that so? Hum, you'll
excuse me, ma'am, but are you intending to wear that dress.

MILDRED--Why not?

SECOND ENGINEER--You'll likely rub against oil and dirt. It can't be
helped.

MILDRED--It doesn't matter. I have lots of white dresses.

SECOND ENGINEER--I have an old coat you might throw over--

MILDRED--I have fifty dresses like this. I will throw this one into the
sea when I come back. That ought to wash it clean, don't you think?

SECOND ENGINEER--[_Doggedly._] There's ladders to climb down that are
none too clean--and dark alleyways--

MILDRED--I will wear this very dress and none other.

SECOND ENGINEER--No offence meant. It's none of my business. I was only
warning you--

MILDRED--Warning? That sounds thrilling.

SECOND ENGINEER--[_Looking down the deck--with a sigh of
relief._]--There's the Fourth now. He's waiting for us. If you'll come--

MILDRED--Go on. I'll follow you. [_He goes. Mildred turns a mocking
smile on her aunt._] An oaf--but a handsome, virile oaf.

AUNT--[_Scornfully._] Poser!

MILDRED--Take care. He said there were dark alleyways--

AUNT--[_In the same tone._] Poser!

MILDRED--[_Biting her lips angrily._] You are right. But would that my
millions were not so anemically chaste!

AUNT--Yes, for a fresh pose I have no doubt you would drag the name of
Douglas in the gutter!

MILDRED--From which it sprang. Good-by, Aunt. Don't pray too hard that
I may fall into the fiery furnace.

AUNT--Poser!

MILDRED--[_Viciously._] Old hag! [_She slaps her aunt insultingly
across the face and walks off, laughing gaily._]

AUNT--[_Screams after her._] I said poser!

[_Curtain_]

SCENE III

SCENE--The stokehole. In the rear, the dimly-outlined bulks of the
furnaces and boilers. High overhead one hanging electric bulb sheds
just enough light through the murky air laden with coal dust to pile up
masses of shadows everywhere. A line of men, stripped to the waist, is
before the furnace doors. They bend over, looking neither to right nor
left, handling their shovels as if they were part of their bodies, with
a strange, awkward, swinging rhythm. They use the shovels to throw open
the furnace doors. Then from these fiery round holes in the black a
flood of terrific light and heat pours full upon the men who are
outlined in silhouette in the crouching, inhuma