XX
GENERAL GOGUET and Roelf Pool had been in Chicago one night and part of a day. Dirk had not met them—was to meet them at Paula’s dinner that evening. He was curious about Pool but not particularly interested in the warrior. Restless, unhappy, wanting to see Dallas (he admitted it, bitterly) he dropped into her studio at an unaccustomed hour almost immediately after lunch and heard gay voices and laughter. Why couldn’t she work alone once in a while without that rabble around her!
Dallas in a grimy smock and the scuffed kid slippery was entertaining two truants from Chicago society—General Emile Goguet and Roelf Pool. They seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. She introduced Dirk as casually as though their presence were a natural and expected thing—which it was. She had never mentioned them to him. Yet now: “This is Dirk DeJong—General Emile Goguet. We were campaigners together in France. Roelf Pool. So were we, weren’t we, Roelf?”
General Emile Goguet bowed formally, but his eyes were twinkling. He appeared to be having a very good time. Roelf Pool’s dark face had lighted up with such a glow of surprise and pleasure as to transform it, He strode over to Dirk, clasped his hand, “Dirk DeJong! Not—why, say, don’t you know me? I’m Roelf Pool!”
“I ought to know you,” said Dirk.
“Oh, but I mean I’m—I knew you when you were a kid. You’re Selina’s Dirk. Aren’t you? My Selina. I’m driving out to see her this afternoon. She’s one of my reasons for being here. Why, I’m” He was laughing, talking excitedly, like a boy. Dallas, all agrin, was enjoying it immensely.
“They’ve run away,” she explained to Dirk, “from the elaborate programme that was arranged for them this afternoon. I don’t know where the French got their reputation for being polite. The General is a perfect boor, aren’t you? And scared to death of women. He’s the only French general in captivity who ever took the trouble to learn English.”
General Goguet nodded violently and roared. “And you?” he said to Dirk in his careful and perfect English. “You, too, are an artist?”
“No,” Dirk said, “not an artist.”
“What, then?”
““Why—uh—bonds. That is, the banking business. Bonds.”
“Ah, yes,” said General Goguet, politely. “Bonds. A very good thing, bonds. We French are very fond of them. We have great respect for American bonds, we French.” He nodded and twinkled and turned away to Dallas.
“We're all going,” announced Dallas, and made a dash for the stuffy little bedroom off the studio.
Well, this was a bit too informal. “Going where?” inquired Dirk. The General, too, appeared bewildered.
Roelf explained, delightedly. “It’s a plot. We're all going to drive out to your mother’s. You'll go, won't you? You simply must.”
“Go?” now put in General Goguet. “Where is it that we go? I thought we stayed here, quietly. It is quiet here, and no reception committees.” His tone was wistful.
Roelf attempted to make it clear. “Mr. DeJong’s mother is a farmer. You remember I told you all about her in the ship coming over. She was wonderful to me when I was a kid. She was the first person to tell me what beauty was—is. She’s magnificent. She raises vegetables.”
“Ah! “A farm! But yes! I, too, am a farmer. Well!” He shook Dirk’s hand again. He appeared now for the first time to find him interesting.
“Of course I'll go. Does Mother know you’re coming? She has been hoping she’d see you but she thought you’d grown so grand”
“Wait until I tell her about the day I landed in Paris with five francs in my pocket. No, she doesn’t know we're coming, but she’ll be there, won’t she? I’ve a feeling she'll be there, exactly the same. She will, won’t she?”
“She'll be there.” It was early spring; the busiest of seasons on the farm.
Dallas emerged in greatcoat and a new spring hat. She waved a hand to the faithful Gilda Hanan. “Tell any one who inquires for me that I’ve felt the call of spring. And if the boy comes for that clay pack picture tell him to-morrow was the day.”
They were down the stairs and off in the powerful car that seemed to be at the visitors’ disposal. Through the Loop, up Michigan Avenue, into the south side. Chicago, often lowering and gray in April, was wearing gold and blue to-day. The air was sharp but beneath the brusqueness of it was a gentle promise. Dallas and Pool were very much absorbed in Paris plans, Paris reminiscences. “And do you remember the time we. . . only seven francs among the lot of us and the dinner was. . . you're surely coming over in June, then . . . oils . . . you've got the thing, I tell you. . . you'll be great, Dallas. . . remember what Vibray said . . . Study. . . work . . .”
Dirk was wretched. He pointed out objects of interest to General Goguet. Sixty miles of boulevard. Park system. Finest in the country. Grand Boulevard. Drexel Boulevard. Jackson Park. Illinois Central trains. Terrible, yes, but they were electrifying. Going to make ’em run by electricity, you know. Things wouldn’t look so dirty, after that. Halsted Street. Longest street in the world.
And, “Ah, yes,” said the General, politely. “Ah, yes. Quite so. Most interesting.”
The rich black loam of High Prairie. A hint of fresh green things just peeping out of the earth. Hothouses. Coldframes. The farm.
It looked very trim and neat. The house, white with green shutters (Selina’s dream realized), smiled at them from among the willows that were already burgeoning hazily under the wooing of a mild and early spring.
“But I thought you said it was a small farm!” said General Goguet, as they descended from the car. He looked about at the acreage.
“It is small,” Dirk assured him. “Only about forty acres.”
“Ah, well, you Americans. In France we farm on a very small scale, you understand. We have not the land. The great vast country.” He waved his right arm. You felt that if the left sleeve had not been empty he would have made a large and sweeping gesture with both arms.
Selina was not in the neat quiet house. She was not on the porch, or in the yard. Meena Bras, phlegmatic and unflustered, came in from the kitchen. Mis’ DeJong was in the fields. She would call her. This she proceeded to do by blowing three powerful blasts and again three on a horn which she took from a hook on the wall. She stood in the kitchen doorway facing the fields, blowing, her red cheeks puffed outrageously. “That brings her,” Meena assured them; and went back to her work. They came out on the porch to await Selina. She was out on the west sixteen—the west sixteen that used to be unprolific, half-drowned muckland. Dirk felt a little uneasy, and ashamed that he should feel so.
Then they saw her coming, a small dark figure against the background of sun and sky and fields. She came swiftly yet ploddingly, for the ground was heavy. They stood facing her, the four of them. As she came nearer they saw that she was wearing a dark skirt pinned up about her ankles to protect it from the wet spring earth and yet it was spattered with a border of mud spots. A rough heavy gray sweater was buttoned closely about the straight slim body. On her head was a battered soft black hat. Her feet, in broad-toed sensible boots, she lifted high out of the soft clinging soil. As she came nearer she took off her hat and holding it a little to one side against the sun, shaded her eyes with it. Her hair blew a little in the gentle spring breeze. Her cheeks were faintly pink. She was coming up the path now. She could distinguish their faces. She saw Dirk; smiled, waved. Her glance went inquiringly to the others—the bearded man in uniform, the tall girl, the man with the dark vivid face. Then she stopped, suddenly, and her hand went to her heart as though she had felt a great pang, and her lips were parted, and her eyes enormous. As Roelf came forward swiftly she took a few quick running steps toward him like a young girl. He took the slight figure in the mud-spattered skirt, the rough gray sweater, and the battered old hat into his arms.