Nor was she disappointed when the man went on.
"I guess we're all out after—dollars," he said reflectively. Then he removed his cigar and luxuriously emitted a thin spiral smoke from between his pursed lips. "It don't seem the sort of work a girl like you should be at, though. Still, why not? It's a great play—chasing dollars. It's the best thing in life—wholesome and human. I've always felt that way about it, and as I've piled up the years and got a peek into motives and things I've felt more sure that competition—that's fixing things right for ourselves out of the general scrum of life—is the life intended for us by the Creator."
Hazel nodded.
"Life is competition," she observed, with a wise little smile.
"Sure. That's why human nature is dishonest—has to be."
There was a question in the girl's eyes which the millionaire was prompt to detect.
"Sure it's dishonest. Can you show me a detail of human nature which is truly honest? Say, I've watched it all my life, I've built every sort of construction on it. Wherever I have built in the belief that honesty is the foundation of human nature things have dropped with a smash. Now I know, and my faith is none the less. Human nature is dishonest. It's only a question of degree. I'm dishonest. You're dishonest. But in your case it's only in the higher ethical sense. You wouldn't steal a pocket-book. You wouldn't commit murder. But put yourself into competition with a girl friend baking a swell layer cake, calculated to disturb the digestion of an ostrich. Say, you'd resort to any old trick you could think of to fix her where you wanted her."
Hazel laughed.
"I wouldn't shoot her up, but—I'd do all I knew to beat her."
"Just so."