th of Life. (_she goes in there_)

HARRY: Oh, I wish Claire wouldn't be strange like that, (_helplessly_)
What is it? What's the matter?

DICK: It's merely the excess of a particularly rich temperament.

HARRY: But it's growing on her. I sometimes wonder if all this
(_indicating the place around him_) is a good thing. It would be all
right if she'd just do what she did in the beginning--make the flowers
as good as possible of their kind. That's an awfully nice thing for a
woman to do--raise flowers. But there's something about this--changing
things into other things--putting things together and making queer new
things--this--

DICK: Creating?

HARRY: Give it any name you want it to have--it's unsettling for a
woman. They say Claire's a shark at it, but what's the good of it, if it
gets her? What is the good of it, anyway? Suppose we can produce new
things. Lord--look at the one ones we've got. (_looks outside; turns
back_) Heavens, what a noise the wind does make around this place, (_but
now it is not all the wind, but_ TOM EDGEWORTHY, _who is trying to let
himself in at the locked door, their backs are to him_) I want my _egg_.
You can't eat an egg without salt. I must say I don't get Claire lately.
I'd like to have Charlie Emmons see her--he's fixed up a lot of people
shot to pieces in the war. Claire needs something to tone her nerves
_up_. You think it would irritate her?

DICK: She'd probably get no little entertainment out of it.

HARRY: Yes, dog-gone her, she would. (TOM _now takes more heroic
measures to make himself heard at the door_) Funny--how the wind can
fool you. Now by not looking around I could imagine--why, I could
imagine anything. Funny, isn't it, about imagination? And Claire says I
haven't got any!

DICK: It would make an amusing drawing--what the wind makes you think is
there. (_first makes forms with his hands, then levelling the soil
prepared by_ ANTHONY, _traces lines with his finger_) Yes, really--quite
jolly.

(TOM, _after a moment of peering in at them, smiles, goes away._)

HARRY: You're another one of the queer ducks, aren't you? Come now--give
me the dirt. Have you queer ones really got anything--or do you just put
it over on us that you have?

DICK: (_smiles, draws on_) Not saying anything, eh? Well, I guess you're
wise there. If you keep mum--how are we going to prove there's nothing
there?

DICK: I don't keep mum. I draw.

HARRY: Lines that don't make anything--how can