“You have no instinct to win, I suppose?” she taunted him.
“No,” he replied thoughtfully; “that’s why I am a failure.”
Some of her throbbing aggressiveness slipped away from her at this speech. She remembered the deck scene on the Victoria when she had listened to Richard’s announcement of his occupation as “professional guest” helped out by occasionally acting as “assistant widow.”
“It would be much better for me,” he went on, “as the world judges values, at least—if I could want to win. But I can’t want to. You see, I am an individualist—I obey my own law. All the world is eager to win; I find that I am not. Fortunately for me there is plenty of chance for the fellow who doesn’t care about getting ahead of some other fellow. There is practically no competition. He has a kind of monopoly!”
“Everybody wants to win,” Walter contributed determinedly. “Racing, now—what’s the good of racing if nobody wanted to win?”
“One could enjoy the race, striving to the utmost, without wanting either to win or lose.”
“Can’t see it,” said Walter.
“The struggle is the thing—not the result. The result is with the gods, but no one can take from you the delight of contesting all your powers. Then there is a joy in giving up to others, an exquisite joy which few people seem to practise.... Yet Christ taught it.”
“Like Phœbe Norris,” suggested Walter.
“Ah, the saint!” Richard remembered.