"You may find some of our methods a little strange, but you'll get used to them," he said. "Meanwhile, I'd be most grateful if you'd dispense with calling me 'sir.' My name is Dink. It is ridiculous, but I'd enjoy your using it."
"Dink?" she asked. "And I suppose you're to call me Orison?"
"That's the drill," he said. "One more question, Orison. Dinner this evening?"
Direct, she thought. Perhaps that's why he's president of a bank, and still so young. "We've hardly met," she said.
"But we're on a first-name basis already," he pointed out. "Dance?"
"I'd love to," Orison said, half expecting an orchestra to march, playing, from the elevator.
"Then I'll pick you up at seven. Windsor Arms, if I remember your personnel form correctly." He stood, lean, all bone and muscle, and bowed slightly. West Point? Hardly. His manners were European. Sandhurst, perhaps, or Saint Cyr. Was she supposed to reply with a curtsy? Orison wondered.
"Thank you," she said.
He was a soldier, or had been: the way, when he turned, his shoulders stayed square. The crisp clicking of his steps, a military metronome, to the elevator. When the door slicked open Orison, staring after Dink, saw that each of the half-dozen men aboard snapped off their hats (but not their earmuffs) and bowed, the earmuffed operator bowing with them. Small bows, true; just head-and-neck. But not to her. To Dink Gerding.