wed 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.

OLIVE. What does it mean?

KATHERINE. Speakin