But no one was to know that it was a sacrifice; not Rose, not Dick nor Tayna even. They were to think he did it happily and because "The stage--the stage life, you know! Well, probably there are better ways for a man to spend his energies."
But, really, in his heart of hearts, Hampstead knew he would love the drama always. He owed it a debt that he could never repay, and some day when he had achieved a brilliant success in another walk of life--when Dick and Tayna were grown and far away perhaps--he would take out the old cigar box and gather his children around him, if he should have children, and tell them the story of his first divinest ambition as one tells the story of one's first love; and of the great sacrifice he had made in the cause of duty, fingering the while these crumbling things as one caresses a lock of hair of the long departed.
"Look, Bud, here's a box of cold cream--nearly full. You can get a quarter for it from somewhere along the line," suggested John, nodding toward the row of dressing rooms as he walked away, his overcoat over his shoulder, a suitcase in his hand.
To make money quickly and steadily and in considerable amounts, was his immediate necessity. He remembered, naturally, that only seven months ago William N. Scofield had offered him a salary of twelve thousand dollars a year, and he went to see that gentleman promptly. But while the Traffic Manager's eye lighted at sight of him, the light faded. Scofield did not refer to the offer he had made or the things he had talked about that night in the Pacific Union Club. He only said absently: "I will speak to Parsons." The next day Parsons offered Hampstead a position in the rate department at one hundred dollars per month. John was not greatly surprised. He knew the world was like that.
Of course, he might have gone next to Mr. Mitchell, but did not. In the first place John knew that no position which that kind-hearted gentleman might offer could pay as much money as he must have. In the second place, he felt himself big with a sense of new-grown powers, of personality that he wanted to capitalize, not for some employer, but for himself.
"Seems to me," he communed, as he walked down Market Street, "that I could sell real estate, or stocks, or bonds; that I could promote enterprises, work with big men, put through their deals, and make a lot of money. I believe I will try it."