FEJEVARY: Takes a good deal upon himself, I should say.
HOLDEN: There isn't any other such loneliness. You know in your heart it's a noble courage.
FEJEVARY: It lacks—humility. (HOLDEN laughs scoffingly) And I think you lack it. I'm asking you to co-operate with me for the good of Morton College.
HOLDEN: Why not do it the other way? You say enlarge that we may grow. That's false. It isn't of the nature of growth. Why not do it the way of Silas Morton and Walt Whitman—each man being his purest and intensest self. I was full of this fervour when you came in. I'm more and more disappointed in our students. They're empty—flippant. No sensitive moment opens them to beauty. No exaltation makes them—what they hadn't known they were. I concluded some of the fault must be mine. The only students I reach are the Hindus. Perhaps Madeline Morton—I don't quite make her out. I too must have gone into a dead stratum. But I can get back. Here alone this afternoon—(softly) I was back.
FEJEVARY: I think we'll have to let the Hindus go.
HOLDEN: (astonished) Go? Our best students?
FEJEVARY: This college is for Americans. I'm not going to have foreign revolutionists come here and block the things I've spent my life working for.
HOLDEN: I don't seem to know what you mean at all.
FEJEVARY: Why, that disgraceful performance this morning. I can settle Madeline all right, (looking at his watch) She should be here by now. But I'm convinced our case before the legislature will be stronger with the Hindus out of here.
HOLDEN: Well, I seem to have missed something—disgraceful performance—the Hindus, Madeline—(stops, bewildered)