She smiled. “When you’ve made your fortune in the movies—”
“That was all a damned lie, Rose-Ann. I haven’t the slightest idea of selling anything to the movies.”
“You’ve no idea how easy it is,” she said.
“Then that’s another reason for my not being interested,” he said. “I’m tired of easy things.... I lied to the managing editor to get to come out here. It was too easy. It’s all too easy.... No, I’m in earnest about it.—I came to Chicago expecting to have to fight my way. Chicago was too damned nice to me. I’ve been living in a pasteboard world ever since. Look at my job—I come and go when I please; and I can say anything I like.”
“The Fortunate Youth!” she murmured.
“The Intellectual Playboy,” he said. “I can say what I like—because nobody cares. That’s the truth. There’s nothing heroic in differing with the crowd when the crowd pays you to do it.”
“Do you want to be heroic, Felix?”
“Yes. I’d like to live in a world where ideas counted for something—where people might put you in jail if you disagreed with them. Then it would be worth while to have opinions of one’s own. One could find out whether one really believed in one’s ideas!”
“Find out—how?”
“By suffering for them a little.”