Rickard did not answer. He felt the questioning eyes of his chief.
“Down to the break,” repeated Tod Marshall, his bright black eyes taking in every detail of the engineer’s get-up, resting, finally, on his sunburned face. “Have one?” He offered Rickard his choice of two small black cigars.
“Thanks, no,” said Rickard.
“Not smoking yet?”
“Not yet.” Rickard was amused at the solicitude. It was as though he had asked: “Your mother is dying?”
“When will the penance be over?” Marshall lighted his cigar, watching the blue blaze of the sulphur-tipped match, the slow igniting of the tobacco—obviously an exquisite sensuous rite.
“It isn’t a penance! It’s an experiment. I never had to do anything I really hated to do. I’ve never had to deny myself anything. Some fellows have to give up studying the profession they love, go to some hard digging or other, to support somebody. I’ve been lucky. I discovered I did not know the meaning of the word ‘sacrifice.’ I buckled down, and gave up the thing I liked best. That’s all that amounts to.”
His words had a solemn effect. Marshall had stopped smoking. Rickard discovered that his confidence had been tactless. Few men had had to sacrifice so much as the one now somberly facing him. His home, first, because a civil war had crushed it; his refuge, then, after years in attics, and struggle with post-bellum prejudices, just as success met him there; the fulness of life as men want it—those eyes knew what sacrifice meant!
“When are you going to quit?” Marshall’s face was still sober.
“When am I going to quit quitting?” laughed his subordinate. “I haven’t thought it out, sir. When it comes to me, the inclination, I suppose. I’ve lost the taste for tobacco.” The break—where those Hardins were—how in thunder was he going to get out of that, and save his skin? Marshall liked his own way—