XXI
THEY had had tea in the farm sitting room and Dallas had made a little moaning over the beauty of the Dutch lustre set. Selina had entertained them with the shining air of one who is robed in silk and fine linen. She and General Goguet had got on famously from the start, meeting on the common ground of asparagus culture.
“But how thick?’ he had demanded, for he, too, had his pet asparagus beds on the farm in Brittany. “How thick at the base?”
Selina made a circle with thumb and forefinger. The General groaned with envy and despair. He was very comfortable, the General. He partook largely of tea and cakes. He flattered Selina with his eyes. She actually dimpled, flushed, laughed like a girl. But it was to Roelf she turned; it was on Roelf that her eyes dwelt and rested. It was with him she walked when she was silent and the others talked. It was as though he were her one son, and had come home. Her face was radiant, beautiful.
Seated next to Dirk, Dallas said, in a low voice: “There, that’s what I mean. That's what I mean when I say I want to do portraits. Not portraits of ladies with a string of pearls and one lily hand half hidden in the folds of a satin skirt. I mean character portraits of men and women who are really distinguished looking—distinguishedly American, for example—like your mother.” )
Dirk looked up at her quickly, half smiling, as though expecting to find her smiling, too. But she was not smiling. "My mother!”
“Yes, if she’d let me. With that fine splendid face all lit up with the light that comes from inside; and the jaw-line like that of the women who came over in the Mayflower, or crossed the continent in a covered wagon; and her eyes! And that battered funny gorgeous bum old hat and the white shirtwaist—and her hands! She’s beautiful. She’d make me famous at one leap. You'd see!”
Dirk stared at her. It was as though he could not comprehend. Then he turned in his chair to stare at his mother. Selina was talking to Roelf.
"And you’ve done all the famous men of Europe, haven’t you, Roelf! To think of it! You've seen the world, and you’ve got it in your hand. Little Roelf Pool. And you did it all alone. In spite of everything.”
Roelf leaned toward her. He put his hand over her rough one. “Cabbages are beautiful,” he said. Then they both laughed as at some exquisite joke. Then, seriously: “What a fine life you’ve had, too, Selina. A full life, and a rich one and successful.”
“I!” exclaimed Selina. "Why, Roelf, I’ve been here all these years, just where you left me when you were a boy. I think the very hat and dress I’m wearing might be the same I wore then. I’ve been nowhere, done nothing, seen nothing. When I think of all the places I was going to see! All the things I was going to do!”
“You've been everywhere in the world,” said Roelf. “You’ve seen all the places of great beauty and light. You remember you told me that your father had once said, when you were a little girl, that there were only two kinds of people who really mattered in the world. One kind was wheat and the other kind emeralds. You’re wheat, Selina.”
“And you’re emerald,” said Selina, quickly.
The General was interested but uncomprehending. He glanced now at the watch on his wrist and gave a little exclamation. “But the dinner! Our hostess, Madame Storm! It is very fine to run away but one must come back. Our so beautiful hostess.” He had sprung to his feet.
“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” said Selina.
“No,” Roelf replied, abruptly. “The mouth is smaller than the eyes. With Mrs. Storm from here to here"—he illustrated by turning to Dallas, touching her lips, her eyes, lightly with his slender powerful brown fingers—“is smaller than from here to here. When the mouth is smaller than the eyes there is no real beauty. Now Dallas here——”
“Yes, me,” scoffed Dallas, all agrin. “There’s a grand mouth for you. If a large mouth is your notion of beauty then I must look like Helen of Troy to you, Roelf.”
“You do,” said Roelf, simply.
Inside Dirk something was saying, over and over, "You're nothing but a rubber stamp, Dirk DeJong. You’re nothing but a rubber stamp.” Over and over.
“These dinners!” exclaimed the General. “I do not wish to seem ungracious, but these dinners! Much rather would I remain here on this quiet and beautiful farm.”
At the porch steps he turned, brought his heels together with a sharp smack, bent from the waist, picked up Selina’s rough work-worn hand and kissed it. And then, as she smiled a little, uncertainly, her left hand at her breast, her cheeks pink, Roelf, too, kissed her hand tenderly.
“Why,” said Selina, and laughed a soft tremulous little laugh, “Why, I’ve never had my hand kissed before.”
She stood on the porch steps and waved at them as they were whirled swiftly away, the four of them. A slight straight little figure in the plain white blouse and the skirt spattered with the soil of the farm.
“You'll come out again?” she had said to Dallas. And Dallas had said yes, but that she was leaving soon for Paris, to study and work.
“When I come back you'll let me do your portrait?”
“My portrait!” Selina had exclaimed, wonderingly.
Now as the four were whirled back to Chicago over the asphalted Halsted road they were relaxed, a little tired. They yielded to the narcotic of spring that was in the air.
Roelf Pool took off his hat. In the cruel spring sunshine you saw that the black hair was sprinkled with gray. “On days like this I refuse to believe that I’m forty-five. Dallas, tell me I’m not forty-five.”
“You’re not forty-five,” said Dallas in her leisurely caressing voice.
Roelf’s lean brown hand reached over frankly and clasped her strong white one. “When you say it like that, Dallas, it sounds true.”
“It is true," said Dallas.
They dropped Dallas first at the shabby old Ontario Street studio, then Dirk at his smart little apartment, and went on.
Dirk turned his key in the lock. Saki, the Japanese houseman, slid silently into the hall making little hissing noises of greeting. On the correct little console in the hall there was a correct little pile of letters and invitations. He went through the Italian living room and into his bedroom. The Jap followed him. Dirk’s correct evening clothes (made by Peel the English tailor on Michigan Boulevard) were laid correctly on his bed—trousers, vest, shirt, coat; fine, immaculate.
“Messages, Saki?”
"Missy Stlom telephone.”
“Oh. Leave any message?”
“No. Say s’e call ’gain.”
“All right, Saki.” He waved him away and out of the room. The man went and closed the door softly behind him as a correct Jap servant should. Dirk took off his coat, his vest, threw them on a chair near the bed. He stood at the bedside looking down at his Peel evening clothes, at the glossy shirtfront that never bulged. A bath, he thought, dully, automatically. Then, quite suddenly, he flung himself on the fine silk-covered bed, face down, and lay there, his head in his arms, very still. He was lying there half an hour later when he heard the telephone’s shrill insistence and Saki’s gentle deferential rap at the bedroom door.
THE END