"But how would you describe the real thing?"
"I can't describe it. All I know is that I'm not it. I'm not working for them, but for myself."
"For yourself—how?"
"To fill in an empty life. When you've no real life you seek an artificial one. As every one rejects the artificial, you get rejected. That's all."
"What would you call a real life—for yourself?"
The fierceness with which she had been speaking became intensified, even when tempered with her diffident half-smile.
"A life in which there was something I was absolutely obliged to do. I begin to wonder if parents know how much of the zest of living they're taking away from their children by leaving them, as we say, well provided for. When there's nothing within reason you can't have and nothing within reason you can't do—well, then, you're out of the running."
"Is that the way you look at yourself—as out of the running?"
"That's the way I am."
"And is there no means of getting into the running?"