- Jo Turner: I do envy you, Laura. To me, life is just an ashtray full of cigarette butts.
- Laura Stanhope: Why don't you marry again, Jo?
- Jo Turner: Oh, I would if I were sure of getting a kid like Bobby.
- Laura Stanhope: What about the present fiancé?
- Jo Turner: Oh, he's a lot of fun. But all he wants is a well-stocked cellar, a racehorse, bridge... anything but babies. Laura, why don't you marry again sometime?
- Laura Stanhope: No. I could never be dependent on anyone again. I love standing on my own feet.
- Jo Turner: I wonder if any woman can.
- Laura Stanhope: Why not?
- Jo Turner: I say, do you remember how you were always afraid the boys would go too far, and I was afraid that they wouldn't?
- Ursula Georgi: How is your child, Laura? They tell me he's handsome, and bright, and very lovable. Yes, Burns told me. And tomorrow's his birthday. I looked at his star tonight and it was glowing red, like the ball I sent him.
- Laura Stanhope: Why should you want to kill Bobby?
- Ursula Georgi: He's your child, isn't he? Yours.
- Laura Stanhope: What have I done, what has anyone done to make you so inhuman?
- Ursula Georgi: Do I hear the very human white race asking that question? When I was twelve years old, white sailors...
- Laura Stanhope: You're insane, you're insane!
- Ursula Georgi: Maybe I am! But do you know what it means to be a half breed, a half caste, in a world ruled by whites? If you're a male, you're a coolie, and if you're a female, you're, well... The white half of me cried for the courtesy and protection that women like you get. The only way I could free myself was by becoming white. And it was almost in my hands, when you, you and your Kappa Society stopped me.
- Laura Stanhope: You're crazy...
- Ursula Georgi: I spent six years slaving to get money enough to put me through finishing school, to make the world accept me as white. But you and the others wouldn't let me cross the color line.
- Laura Stanhope: But we were young. Maybe we were cruel. But you can't use that to justify murder!
- Ursula Georgi: I can.
- Ursula Georgi: How I used to envy you girls. Your parties, your sorority.
- Helen Dawson Frye: You're lucky you don't belong, if you ask me.
- Ursula Georgi: Because of those timetables laid out by the stars you were talking about? You straight-thinking, oh so rational Anglo-Saxons don't believe in such things, do you?
- Helen Dawson Frye: Laura doesn't, thank goodness.
- Ursula Georgi: Mrs. Stanhope always was a strong character, wasn't she?
- Helen Dawson Frye: Yes. That's why she's getting us all together. To laugh it all away. I haven't laughed in so long. My little girl had the bluest eyes. She was just two and a half years old... It's what happened to Yogadachi himself that makes it all so convincing. He predicted even the date he'd go. You can't laugh that off, can you.
- Ursula Georgi: No.
- Helen Dawson Frye: I want you to read his last letter.
- [She gives Ursula a crumpled letter, then picks up a revolver and gestures with it as she speaks]
- Helen Dawson Frye: Isn't that silly? A man I've never seen! He has the nerve to tell me that I'm going to kill myself.
- Ursula Georgi: Why the gun, then? Aren't you afraid?
- Helen Dawson Frye: Afraid? Why, of course not. It belongs to my husband. I brought it along with me just to prove to myself that that swami is bogus. If- if I avoided the thing now, I would know that I was afraid. Oh, are you going to bed?
- Ursula Georgi: Yes, it's so late. We'll be in Los Angeles in the morning. I'll see you at breakfast.
- Helen Dawson Frye: Fine.
- Ursula Georgi: [Looking at the gun] But if I were you, I'd...
- Helen Dawson Frye: This? Don't worry, no stars are going to twinkle twinkle me into committing suicide.
- Ursula Georgi: Good evening, Laura.
- Laura Stanhope: Ursula Georgi.
- Ursula Georgi: Does the exclusive Mrs. Stanhope further honor me by remembering my name?
- Jo Turner: Oh, you let an old lady beat you!
- Bobby Stanhope: You did not beat me, I let you win 'cause you're a girl!
- Jo Turner: Darling, I'm sorry to make a liar out of your infallible swami, but I haven't killed myself over a man yet.
- Laura Stanhope: Jo.
- Jo Turner: He should have known that it's the men that kill themselves over me.
- Laura Stanhope: Sit down, Grace, dear, sit down.
- Grace Coombs: Oh, Jo, please don't be so flippant. What is written in the stars must come to pass.
- Jo Turner: Okay with me. I've had a lot of fun.
- Laura Stanhope: You're both fatalists.
- Jo Turner: Mm, sure! When the gods are fed up with me, pfft, voila!
- Grace Coombs: Do you still doubt, Laura? Are you still laughing, Jo? Yogadachi's been right again. Oh, you must accept his truth as I have.
- Laura Stanhope: That's the trouble with you, Grace, glorifying such rot.
- Grace Coombs: Rot? I tell you that nothing could save Helen, nor May, nor Hazel, from fate. Don't you understand? It was written for them... as it is for all of us.
- Jo Turner: Well if it's all settled for us, why worry?
- Laura Stanhope: Stop talking about it, stop thinking about it! Anyone can think themselves into anything.
- Jo Turner: You two are stumbling in a dark, material world. I am above it, as Yogadachi was. Death means peace, freedom. I shall meet him, gladly.
- Jo Turner: Well, I shan't. Depression or not, personally I'm mad about this world. Oh, go on home, Grace. You give me the creeps.
- Jo Turner: No, no, not I, but what's written for you, only you're afraid to face it.
- Laura Stanhope: Grace, I think you'd better go.
- Jo Turner: Just as you say.
- Chauffeur Burns: I don't know how I've lasted it, away from you.
- Ursula Georgi: You haven't. You've grown fat.
- Chauffeur Burns: Well, it's a soft job. Did you have any trouble finding the place?
- Ursula Georgi: No.
- Chauffeur Burns: I thought a little house would be better, while you're...
- Ursula Georgi: Yes, Burns.
- Chauffeur Burns: How long does a man have to be in love with you before you call him by his first name? Why you, you'd think I was working for you.
- Ursula Georgi: You are.
- Chauffeur Burns: Yeah. Haven't you missed me?
- Ursula Georgi: Course I have.
- Chauffeur Burns: When are you going to tell me about things? When are we going to stop all this?
- Ursula Georgi: Shh.
- Chauffeur Burns: I didn't figure on going this far. I didn't even think it would work!
- Ursula Georgi: But you see it does.
- Chauffeur Burns: With the others, perhaps. But, but Mrs. Stanhope!
- Ursula Georgi: Is Mrs. Stanhope... Laura... Is she still strong?
- Chauffeur Burns: Yes, she is.
- Ursula Georgi: I hate her. Her cool, poised character. Her rigid mind.
- Chauffeur Burns: You'll never break her.
- Ursula Georgi: Yes I will.
- Ursula Georgi: Give this to Master Bobby with all your love. And don't drop it.
- Chauffeur Burns: I... I can't. I can't bear the thought of it, I... I can't do it.
- Ursula Georgi: Of course you will.
- [She embraces him]
- Ursula Georgi: Darling. You and I are going away together, aren't we? As soon as everything is done. You'll do it, won't you?
- Chauffeur Burns: What... what will it do to him?
- Ursula Georgi: He won't know anything. He'll bounce it. Children always bounce rubber balls, don't they? And then...
- Chauffeur Burns: Why...
- Ursula Georgi: Shh.
- Laura Stanhope: You've done a lot for me, Jo.
- Jo Turner: We've helped each other, rather. But with Sergeant Clive around, you won't need me.
- Laura Stanhope: Just the same, I hate to see you go.
- Jo Turner: And I hate going, too, only I don't dare stay.
- Laura Stanhope: Why?
- Jo Turner: Oh, well, I've followed my fiancé, and... I'd believe anything of myself when I'm in love.
- Laura Stanhope: Look here, Jo, you surely don't believe your prediction.
- Jo Turner: I'm human too! Do you know, the only credulous animal on the whole face of the earth is the human.
- Police Sergeant Barry Clive: We want this woman. Her name's Ursula Georgi. Half-breed type. Half Hindu, half Javanese, I don't know. She's living right here in this town. I want you to find her. Check every move she makes.
- Mike - the Detective: There are one million, two hundred and thirty-eight thousand, and forty-eight people in Los Angeles, and you want only one woman? Cinch!
- Ursula Georgi: How is your child, Laura? They tell me he's handsome, and bright, and very lovable. Yes, Burns told me. And tomorrow's his birthday. I looked at his star tonight and it was glowing red, like the ball I sent him.
- Laura Stanhope: Why should you want to kill Bobby?
- Ursula Georgi: He's your child, isn't he? Yours.
- Laura Stanhope: What have I done, what has anyone done, to make you so inhuman?
- Ursula Georgi: [laughing] Do I hear the very human white race asking that question? When I was twelve years old, white sailors...
- Laura Stanhope: You're insane, you're insane!
- Ursula Georgi: Maybe I am! But do you know what it means to be a half breed, a half caste, in a world ruled by whites? If you're a male, you're a coolie, and if you're a female, you're, well... The white half of me cried for the courtesy and protection that women like you get. The only way I could free myself was by becoming white. And it was almost in my hands, when you, you and your Kappa Society, stopped me.
- Laura Stanhope: You're crazy...
- Ursula Georgi: I spent six years slaving to get money enough to put me through finishing school, to make the world accept me as white. But you and the others wouldn't let me cross the color line.
- Laura Stanhope: But we were young. Maybe we were cruel. But you can't use that to justify murder!
- Ursula Georgi: I can.
- Swami Yogadachi: I've worked this horoscope out five times. It predicts great happiness, but still I'm afraid to send it.
- Ursula Georgi: Why, Swami?
- Swami Yogadachi: Because I was fatally wrong about June Raskob. Her future was as happy as this one. A week after I wrote her, her sister was dead and she was insane.
- Ursula Georgi: You must send it.
- Swami Yogadachi: Have I... have I lost the power to divine the stars?
- Ursula Georgi: No, Swami. But you must send the letter. For the sake of those twelve women who wrote the round robin, asking for their horoscopes. They were schoolgirls together. Their lives form one chain of destiny. Twelve women who believe. Don't destroy their faith in the occult, Swami.
- Swami Yogadachi: What is in that brain of yours? Your eyes... We've met before, of that I'm certain!
- Ursula Georgi: Not on this earth. Were we lovers in another incarnation, Swami? Tell me.
- [They kiss]
- Ursula Georgi: Couldn't you learn by casting my horoscope?
- Swami Yogadachi: I have cast it. To see if the heavens could explain your- your effect on me.
- Ursula Georgi: Yes?
- Swami Yogadachi: Please don't make me tell you.
- Ursula Georgi: Tell me.
- Swami Yogadachi: It is death I read for you.
- Ursula Georgi: Aren't we all to die?
- Swami Yogadachi: But you, not pleasantly. Oh, the thought is too horrible. Your body, mangled like that.
- Ursula Georgi: How?
- Swami Yogadachi: An accident, the stars say. A railroad, perhaps.
- Ursula Georgi: How strange. So are you to die like that.
- Swami Yogadachi: Don't look at me that way. Don't look at me like that.
- Ursula Georgi: You're very tired, Swami. Sleep is so sweet.
- Laura Stanhope: Oh, another one of those messages?
- Grace Coombs: Yes.
- Laura Stanhope: Grace, if you don't stop selling your soul to the devil by believing in those foolish horoscopes...
- Grace Coombs: What about May? And Hazel is in jail.
- Laura Stanhope: It's pitiful, yes... but the result of natural causes. And belief in anything else is believing in magic.
- Grace Coombs: But Laura...
- Laura Stanhope: And you could help the rest of us, Grace, if you'd hush, and stop writing your letters telling us all to prepare for our...
- Grace Coombs: [Interrupting] But the moon does control the tides, and nothing can live without the sun. Why shouldn't we be controlled?
- Laura Stanhope: Because we're reasoning human beings, silly, and not irresponsible machines.
- Grace Coombs: Listen, Laura. This letter came from the swami just an hour ago. I have to tell you. Listen: "I would do anything to prevent the disasters that have come down upon you and your friends, as I would do anything to save my own life, but I can do neither, for I am helpless too. I knew too much about the heavens. They're killing me. My own horoscope shows that I am to leave this earth before July first."
- Laura Stanhope: [laughing] Well, if I needed anything more than common sense to disprove your argument, that would be enough. No one is going to take his own life just to prove to twelve women that he's a good stargazer. You're deranged, Grace.
- Grace Coombs: If this happens, if the swami himself does die, how can we disbelieve?
- Helen Dawson Frye: [Reading a news article about the swami's death] Well, that makes it practically unanimous.
- Inspector: Suicide's bad enough, but I'm relieved it wasn't...
- Police Sergeant Barry Clive: Murder? No. On the other hand, something makes one kill oneself, so suicide is murder. Trouble is, you can't arrest a something, can you?
- Police Sergeant Barry Clive: We want this woman. Her name's Ursula Georgi. Half-breed type. Half Hindu, half Javanese, I don't know. She's living right here in this town. I want you to find her. Check every move she makes.
- Mike - the Detective: There are one million, two hundred and thirty-eight thousand and forty-eight people in Los Angeles, and you want only one woman? Cinch!
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