hat harm do I do here?

CLAIRE: You pull down the temperature.

HARRY: Not after I'm in.

CLAIRE: And you told Tom and Dick to come and make it uneven.

HARRY: Tom and Dick are our guests. We can't eat where it's warm and
leave them to eat where it's cold.

CLAIRE: I don't see why not.

HARRY: You only see what you want to see.

CLAIRE: That's not true. I wish it were. No; no, I don't either. (_she
is disturbed--that troubled thing which rises from within, from deep,
and takes_ CLAIRE. _She turns to the Edge Vine, examines. Regretfully
to_ ANTHONY, _who has come in with a plant_) It's turning back, isn't
it?

ANTHONY: Can you be sure yet, Miss Claire?

CLAIRE: Oh yes--it's had its chance. It doesn't want to be--what hasn't
been.

HARRY: (_who has turned at this note in her voice. Speaks kindly_) Don't
take it so seriously, Claire. (CLAIRE _laughs_)

CLAIRE: No, I suppose not. But it _does_ matter--and why should I
pretend it doesn't, just because I've failed with it?

HARRY: Well, I don't want to see it get you--it's not important enough
for that.

CLAIRE: (_in her brooding way_) Anything is important enough for
that--if it's important at all. (_to the vine_) I thought you were out,
but you're--going back home.

ANTHONY: But you're doing it this time, Miss Claire. When Breath of Life
opens--and we see its heart--

(CLAIRE _looks toward the inner room. Because of intervening plants they
do not see what is seen from the front--a plant like caught motion, and
of a greater transparency than plants have had. Its leaves, like waves
that curl, close around a heart that is not seen. This plant stands by
itself in what, because of the arrangement of things about it, is a
hidden place. But nothing is between it and the light_.)

CLAIRE: Yes, if the heart has (_a little laugh_) held its own, then
Breath of Life is alive in its otherness. But Edge Vine is running back
to what it broke out of.

HARRY: Come, have some coffee, Claire.

(ANTHONY _returns to the inner room, the outer door opens_. DICK _is
hurled in_.)

CLAIRE: (_going to the door, as he gasps for breath before closing it_)
How dare you make my temperature uneven! (_she shuts the door and leans
against it_)

DICK: Is that what I do?

(_A laugh, a look between them, which is held into significance_.)

HARRY: (_who is not facing them_) Where's the salt?

DICK: Oh, I fell down in the snow. I must have left the salt where I
fell. I'll go back