Pidge was up in her own room minutes afterward, before she realized that it had happened under that white lamp of Cobden’s “parlor.”
XIII
“MOTHER”
“A MAN’S a fool before he learns technic,” John Higgins said, as he leaned back from a manuscript the next afternoon. “He’s a cripple while he’s learning it. When he’s learned it and forgotten he’s learned it—he begins to be a workman. That’s the freedom of knowledge.... As for this Tunis story of young Melton’s—it’s a subtle sort of botch.”
Rufus Melton came to the basement entrance at seven. Even if Miss Claes had not gone out to dinner, Pidge would not have taken him upstairs. He looked older, his back had a curious droop. He glanced at her ruefully, and around the room. Pidge stood beside the table.
“Mr. Higgins didn’t care for your story,” she said. “It has happened unluckily all around.”
His head had bowed before she began to speak. His eyes came up to her now, full of contrition and pain.
“I think the hardest thing I ever did was to come here to-night. Only one thing made it possible. I’d have started west, only New York is a curious old dump.”
“How is that?” she asked warily.
“You have to go north to go west. I mean the only way out is north, for a pedestrian.”
“You haven’t enough for the ferry or tube?”