thought he would smash something.

HARRY: Well, that was an error in judgment.

CLAIRE: I'm such a naive trusting person (HARRY _laughs_--CLAIRE _gives
him a surprised look, continues simply_). Such a guileless soul that I
thought flying would do something to a man. But it didn't take us out.
We just took it in.

TOM: It's only our own spirit can take us out.

HARRY: Whatever you mean by out.

CLAIRE: (_after looking intently at_ TOM, _and considering it_) But our
own spirit is not something on the loose. Mine isn't. It has something
to do with what I do. To fly. To be free in air. To look from above on
the world of all my days. Be where man has never been! Yes--wouldn't you
think the spirit could get the idea? The earth grows smaller. I am
leaving. What are they--running around down there? Why do they run
around down there? Houses? Houses are funny lines and down-going
slants--houses are vanishing slants. I am alone. Can I breathe this
rarer air? Shall I go higher? Shall I go too high? I am loose. I am out.
But no; man flew, and returned to earth the man who left it.

HARRY: And jolly well likely not to have returned at all if he'd had
those flighty notions while operating a machine.

CLAIRE: Oh, Harry! (_not lightly asked_) Can't you see it would be
better not to have returned than to return the man who left it?

HARRY: I have some regard for human life.

CLAIRE: Why, no--I am the one who has the regard for human life, (_more
lightly_) That was why I swiftly divorced my stick-in-the-mud artist and
married--the man of flight. But I merely passed from a stick-in-the-mud
artist to a--

DICK: Stick-in-the-air aviator?

HARRY: Speaking of your stick-in-the-mud artist, as you romantically
call your first blunder, isn't his daughter--and yours--due here to-day?

CLAIRE: I knew something was disturbing me. Elizabeth. A daughter is
being delivered unto me this morning. I have a feeling it will be more
painful than the original delivery. She has been, as they quaintly say,
educated; prepared for her place in life.

HARRY: And fortunately Claire has a sister who is willing to give her
young niece that place.

CLAIRE: The idea of giving anyone a place in life.

HARRY: Yes! The very idea!

CLAIRE: Yes! (_as often, the mocking thing gives true expression to what
lies sombrely in her_) The war. There was another gorgeous chance.

HARRY: Chance for what? I call you, Claire. I ask you to say what you
mean.

CLA