ld 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. Speaking to people who won't listen.

OLIVE. What do they do, then?

KATHERINE. Just a few people go to hear him, and then a great crowd
comes and breaks in; or they wait for him outside, and throw things,
and hoot.

OLIVE. Poor Daddy! Is it people on our side who throw things?

KATHERINE. Yes, but only rough people.

OLIVE. Why does he go on doing it? I shouldn't.

KATHERINE. H