“She’s troublesome to do anything for, Nagar. She rebels against accepting any favor. I think she must have been forced to accept many favors from people outside, when she lived with her father. Was there a bit of boiled halibut left from last night?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll make a little omelet with a few flakes of fish in it. I’m sure she isn’t getting any money from her father, but she has kept up her rent in advance. Did she work all night?”
“Her room was quiet after two, until I came down. Then I heard her typewriter as I swept the upper hall.”
“It seems to be a race, Nagar, between the child and her book—which will finish the other? I love her spirit, but she isn’t taking care of herself.... Yes, we’ll put in these asparagus tips.... I think Mr. Musser believes that the world owes him a living, but finds it hard to collect, sometimes, with only metaphysics to offer. And now Pidge has flung herself to the opposite extreme; talks of earning her living in a factory, when her book is done. She’s a living protest against talking and not doing. We must be very good to her, Nagar.”
Miss Claes brought a little creamy porcelain urn, and held it for him to fill with coffee from the larger pot. Nagar held the door open for her into the basement hall. A moment later on the top floor, she tapped at the second last door on the left. Pidge sat at her machine under the gaslight beyond the head of the cot.
“I can’t make their swords play!” she moaned. “All my swords are stiff as shinny sticks. The trouble is, I don’t know men, Miss Claes—not red animal men like they should be in this story. I know pussy men. I know pious men, salvey and wormy men, monks and mummies and monsters, but I don’t know honest-to-God men! Here they are taunting each other as they stab, and their talk sounds—like Shakespeare! Oh, dear, you’ve brought me more coffee and eats!”
“I won’t touch your papers, Pidge, but if you take them off the cot, I’ll put the tray between us. I haven’t had breakfast.”
Pidge turned the roller of her typemill down so that the most recent literary revelation might not appear to a roving eye. Then she crisscrossed different packages of manuscript, placed the mass face down before the waving glass, and moved the oil stove aside so she could pass to her place on the cot.
“You always forget to bring your coffeepot down to the range, Pidge——”