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Some distinctions: zeroth, you didn't get the job, and you didn't find out until later, and both of those things matter. First, even had you gotten the job, the laptop would not have been the difference between you and "tens of thousands of dollars," but between you and the opportunity to earn tens of thousands of dollars. Options are valuable, but they are not equal in value to the exercise of the option. Second, "only" a twenty is a similar offer, proportionately, to $10,000 to a multi-billionaire--or even a million dollars, if we factor in diminishing returns. So while I do not think it was cheap of you to sacrifice a twenty, I do think it was maybe impolite of you to ask. People are conditioned to refuse rewards for their good deeds. Aesthetically, I would have offered her the twenty; aesthetically, it would still be appropriate for her to turn it down, if she just had no particular need of twenty dollars.
But probably I get most of my aesthetics from fantasy novels and video games.
I once lost my wallet in an Uber coming back from AC. It had about 800 dollars in it. A woman found it and took pains to reach out to me. I wanted to give her one hundred dollars as a tip but she refused as she said she was just doing the right thing. I told her to give the hundred to the charity of her choice and then she accepted. I doubt she actually gave it to a charity but I was okay with that.
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