“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.