ith me a while? I want to purify the tower.

(ADELAIDE _begins to disappear_)

HARRY: Fine time to choose for a _tete-a-tete. (as he is leaving_) I'd
think more of you, Edgeworthy, if you refused to humour Claire in her
ill-breeding.

ADELAIDE: (_her severe voice coming from below_) It is not what she was
taught.

CLAIRE: No, it's not what I was taught, (_laughing rather timidly_) And
perhaps you'd rather have your dinner?

TOM: No.

CLAIRE: We'll get something later. I want to talk to you. (_but she does
not--laughs_) Absurd that I should feel bashful with you. Why am I so
awkward with words when I go to talk to you?

TOM: The words know they're not needed.

CLAIRE: No, they're not needed. There's something underneath--an open
way--down below the way that words can go. (_rather desperately_) It is
there, isn't it?

TOM: Oh, yes, it is there.

CLAIRE: Then why do we never--go it?

TOM: If we went it, it would not be there.

CLAIRE: Is that true? How terrible, if that is true.

TOM: Not terrible, wonderful--that it should--of itself--be there.

CLAIRE: (_with the simplicity that can say anything_) I want to go it,
Tom, I'm lonely up on top here. Is it that I have more faith than you,
or is it only that I'm greedier? You see, you don't know (_her reckless
laugh_) what you're missing. You don't know how I could love you.

TOM: Don't, Claire; that isn't--how it is--between you and me.

CLAIRE: But why can't it be--every way--between you and me?

TOM: Because we'd lose--the open way. (_the quality of his denial shows
how strong is his feeling for her_) With anyone else--not with you.

CLAIRE: But you are the only one I want. The only one--all of me wants.

TOM: I know; but that's the way it is.

CLAIRE: You're cruel.

TOM: Oh, Claire, I'm trying so hard to--save it for us. Isn't it our
beauty and our safeguard that underneath our separate lives, no matter
where we may be, with what other, there is this open way between us?
That's so much more than anything we could bring to being.

CLAIRE: Perhaps. But--it's different with me. I'm not--all spirit.

TOM: (_his hand on her_) Dear!

CLAIRE: No, don't touch me--since (_moving_) you're going away
to-morrow? (_he nods_) For--always? (_his head just moves assent_) India
is just another country. But there are undiscovered countries.

TOM: Yes, but we are so feeble we have to reach our country through the
actual country lying nearest. Don't you do that