Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/263

 washed his hands, and at last had no further excuse to keep him from the dining-room.

He did not look at his father. He filled his pipe and sat down beside the window.

"Well," Mr. Gregg said, with a calculated mildness, "if you are going to stay here, will you tell me what you intend to do?"

"I don't know."

"You're going on the stage?"

"Yes. I'm going on the stage."

"As your life work?"

"I suppose so."

"You have no training for it."

"No."

"You hope to succeed at it?"

"I don't hope to succeed very well at anything."

"Why not?"

"I don't care whether I do or not."

"You don't care whether you succeed or not?"

"No."

"Why?"

"There are other things in life more important."

"What are they?"

"Oh, you know them as well as I do."

Mr. Gregg studied his cigar with an admirable self-restraint. "You hope to marry, I suppose."

"I suppose so."

"To support your wife and children?"

"I suppose so."

"On the stage?"

"Or in some other way."