“I think the only way is to find out for myself.... I don’t know anybody who can tell me reasons. I like to be told why. If I don’t know the facts about life how can I write plays and act them? I must find out. I’m twenty, and I know scarcely anything worth knowing. It is awful. It frightens me. I’m crazy to be somebody. I can’t be unless I learn the truth about things.
“There is nobody at home to tell me.... I couldn’t stand it any longer.... I had to find out for myself. Books don’t help. They excite.” She looked at him feverishly: “It is a terrible thing to want only facts,” she said. “Because nothing else satisfies.”
He thought, incredulously, “Where did she get that line?” He said: “A taste for Truth spoils one’s appetite for anything else.... So that’s what you’re after, is it? You’re after the truth about things.”
She did not reply.
He said, always watching her: “When you know the truth what are you going to do with it?”
“Act it. Write it.”
“Live it, too?” he inquired gravely.
She turned to look at him, not comprehending.
“Where are you going to get the money to do all this?” he asked lightly.
“It is going to be difficult—without money,” she admitted.