Maia.

Then what would you put in its place?

Professor Rubek.

Life, Maia.

Maia.

Life?

Professor Rubek.

Yes, is not life in sunshine and in beauty a hundred times better worth while than to hang about to the end of your days in a raw, damp hole, and wear yourself out in a perpetual struggle with lumps of clay and blocks of stone?

Maia.

[With a little sigh.] Yes, I have always thought so, certainly.