HARRY: I'm going where I can smoke, (goes out)
DICK: (lightly, but fascinated by the idea) You think there is a door on the—hinter side of destruction?
TOM: How can one tell—where a door may be? One thing I want to say to you—for it is about you. (regards DICK and not with his usual impersonal contemplation) I don't think Claire should have—any door closed to her. (pause) You know, I think, what I mean. And perhaps you can guess how it hurts to say it. Whether it's—mere escape within,—rather shameful escape within, or the wild hope of that door through, it's—(suddenly all human) Be good to her! (after a difficult moment, smiles) Going away for ever is like dying, so one can say things.
DICK: Why do you do it—go away for ever?
TOM: I haven't succeeded here.
DICK: But you've tried the going away before.
TOM: Never knowing I would not come back. So that wasn't going away. My hope is that this will be like looking at life from outside life.
DICK: But then you'll not be in it.
TOM: I haven't been able to look at it while in it.
DICK: Isn't it more important to be in it than to look at it?