"Or that your idea of what's good is—is mistaken."
"You don't pretend that you haven't done wrong?" cried Rod.
"I might have done worse," replied she. "I might have wronged others. No, Rod, I can't honestly say I've ever felt wicked."
"Why, what brought you here?"
She reflected a moment, then smiled. "Two things brought me down," said she. "In the first place, I wasn't raised right. I was raised as a lady instead of as a human being. So I didn't know how to meet the conditions of life. In the second place—" her smile returned, broadened—"I was too—too what's called 'good.'"
"Pity about you!" mocked he.
"Being what's called good is all very well if you're independent or if you've got a husband or a father to do life's dirty work for you—or, perhaps, if you happen to be in some profession like preaching or teaching—though I don't believe the so-called 'goodness' would let you get very far even as a preacher. In most lines, to practice what we're taught as children would be to go to the bottom like a stone. You know this is a hard world, Rod. It's full of men and women fighting desperately for food and clothes and a roof to cover them—fighting each other. And to get on you've got to have the courage and the indifference to your fellow beings that'll enable you to do it."
"There's a lot of truth in that," admitted Spenser. "If I'd not been such a 'good fellow,' as they call it—a fellow everybody liked—if I'd been like Brent, for instance—Brent, who never would have any friends, who never would do anything for anybody but himself, who hadn't a thought except for his career—why, I'd be where he is."
It was at the tip of Susan's tongue to say, "Yes—strong—able to help others—able to do things worth while." But she did not speak.
Rod went on: "I'm not going to be a fool any longer. I'm going to be too busy to have friends or to help people or to do anything but push my own interests."