“Yes.” Mr Hammond’s face gave no clue as to his opinion of the masterpiece in question. “I am pleased to see you, and to give you any help in my power. As I said in my note, I had a great admiration for your father. And so you have determined to settle in town and enter the great arena?”
“Yes. We are very poor, and must work for ourselves. I have been writing for my own amusement ever since I was a child, and if it were possible to make a livelihood in that way I should like it better than anything else. I would rather live on half the money and do the work I love.”
She looked appealingly at the impassive face, but no approval of her prospective renunciation was forthcoming. Mr Hammond merely bent his head in grave assent and remarked:
“Literature is a good crutch, but a very inefficient staff. If you have no private means, and are seeking for a profession which is to be your entire support, you would be wiser to go in for millinery. Brain-work is uncertain, trying, and badly paid. Even at the best an author’s spell of popularity is short-lived in these degenerate days. A new writer comes along with a fresh trick, and the old friend is promptly forgotten and despised. For the sake of L.S.D. he is compelled to write twice as much as he ought to do, and so dooms himself even more completely. In millinery, I should suppose, experience adds to capacity, and the demand for bonnets is a happy certainty.”
This time it was the editor who smiled and Theo who was unresponsive. She was deeply offended, and hope had sunk to the lowest ebb. Surely if Mr Hammond had found any merit in her story he would not have humiliated her by such a suggestion. She lowered her eyes, and trifled nervously with her furs.
“Then you think—after reading my story—you think I have no chance?”
“No; I don’t say that. That depends entirely upon—”
“Yes?”
Mr Hammond looked at her with a kindly pity. “Upon how much heart-breaking you can stand!” he said solemnly. “The apprenticeship which you will have to serve is weeks, months—it may be even years—of steady, persistent, unsuccessful work; weary disappointment after weary disappointment; nothing to show for your labour but a drawer full of dog-eared papers which nobody will accept. Realise what it means, and ask yourself if you have strength to bear it; if you have sufficient courage and self-confidence to work on undaunted, and find fresh inspiration in the midst of defeat.”
He looked at her gravely, and Theo lifted her head and returned the look with flashing eyes.