(_again a pause_) It's very hard for me to talk
to you.
MADELINE: (_gently_) Perhaps we needn't do it.
HOLDEN: (_something in him forcing him to say it_) I'm staying for
financial reasons.
MADELINE: (_kind, but not going to let the truth get away_) You don't
think that--having to stay within--or deciding to, rather, makes you
think these things of the--blight of being without?
HOLDEN: I think there is danger to you in--so young, becoming alien to
society.
MADELINE: As great as the danger of staying within--and becoming like
the thing I'm within?
HOLDEN: You wouldn't become like it.
MADELINE: Why wouldn't I? That's what it does to the rest of you. I
don't see it--this fullness of life business. I don't see that Uncle
Felix has got it--or even Aunt Isabel, and you--I think that in buying
it you're losing it.
HOLDEN: I don't think you know what a cruel thing you are saying.
MADELINE: There must be something pretty rotten about Morton College if
you have to sell your soul to stay in it!
HOLDEN: You don't 'sell your soul'. You persuade yourself to wait.
MADELINE: (_unable to look at him, as if feeling shame_) You have had a
talk with Uncle Felix since that day in the library you stepped aside
for me to pass.
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