In early July, Pidge made her first move since coming to New York. The spirit had gone out of the house in Harrow Street for her, with Miss Claes’ departure. She sent the boy-baby up into the country and took a room at the Sennacherib in Gramercy Park, a step of which Rufe Melton strongly approved:
“You were getting stale down there, Pan,” he said, one night when he came to dine. “The Village is all right for a novelty, but real New York hasn’t time for that sort of thing. I see you’re running Carver’s novel in the P. S. What did you get in on that for? Did he give it to you?”
“Rather not. It cost real money.”
“A hang-over from John Higgins’ desk?”
“No, we took it after—after——”
“Carver could never have slipped that over on you, Pan,” he broke in, “if you had lived uptown. But no, you never would listen to me, that a thing isn’t great because it’s nasty——”
“You think it isn’t a successful serial?”
“Not a chance——”
There was truth in what he said. The new novel was rapidly unreeling in generous installments, without much gratifying noise from the readers.
Rufe confided that he was doing a long story, and that Redge Walters was very much interested in it as a serial prospect.