n and
the servants and all the rest of the parasites and blackmailers. What
are our terrors to theirs? Give me the power to kill them; and I'll
spare them in sheer--

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [cutting in sharply]. Fellow feeling?

HECTOR. No. I should kill myself if I believed that. I must believe that
my spark, small as it is, is divine, and that the red light over their
door is hell fire. I should spare them in simple magnanimous pity.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. You can't spare them until you have the power to kill
them. At present they have the power to kill you. There are millions
of blacks over the water for them to train and let loose on us. They're
going to do it. They're doing it already.

HECTOR. They are too stupid to use their power.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [throwing down his brush and coming to the end of the
sofa]. Do not deceive yourself: they do use it. We kill the better half
of ourselves every day to propitiate them. The knowledge that these
people are there to render all our aspirations barren prevents us having
the aspirations. And when we are tempted to seek their destruction they
bring forth demons to delude us, disguised as pretty daughters, and
singers and poets and the like, for whose sake we spare them.

HECTOR [sitting up and leaning towards him]. May not Hesione be such a
demon, brought forth by you lest I should slay you?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. That is possible. She has used you up, and left you
nothing but dreams, as some women do.

HECTOR. Vampire women, demon women.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Men think the world well lost for them, and lose it
accordingly. Who are the men that do things? The husbands of the shrew
and of the drunkard, the men with the thorn in the flesh. [Walking
distractedly away towards the pantry]. I must think these things out.
[Turning suddenly]. But I go on with the dynamite none the less. I will
discover a ray mightier than any X-ray: a mind ray that will explode the
ammunition in the belt of my adversary before he can point his gun at
me. And I must hurry. I am old: I have no time to waste in talk [he is
about to go into the pantry, and Hector is making for the hall, when
Hesione comes back].

MRS HUSHABYE. Daddiest, you and Hector must come and help me to
entertain all these people. What on earth were you shouting about?

HECTOR [stopping in the act of turning the door handle]. He is madder
than usual.

MRS HUSHABYE. We all are.

HECTOR. I must change [he resumes his door opening].