She barely had the strength to gasp, “Why, Mr. Dyckman, aren't you awful?” and time to straighten her jumbled hat and hair when her apartment-building drew up alongside the limousine and came to a halt.
Dyckman pleaded, like a half-witted booby, “Let's take a little longer ride.”
But she remembered her dignity and said, with imperial scorn, “I should hope not!”
She permitted him to help her out.
He said: “When may I see you again? Soon, please!”
She smiled, with a hurt patience, and answered, “Not for a long while.”
He chuckled: “To-morrow, eh? That's great!”
She wished that he would not say, “That's great.” If he would only say, “Ripping!” or, “I say, that's ripping!” or, “Awfully good of you,” or, “No end”—anything swagger. But he would not swagger.
He escorted her to the elevator, where she gave him a queenly hand and murmured, “Good night!”
He watched her go up like Medea in machina; then he turned away and stumbled back into his limousine. It was still fragrant from her presence. The perfume she was using then was a rather aggressive essence of a lingering tenacity upon the atmosphere. But Dyckman was so excited that he liked it. The limousine could hardly contain him.