Show r L by EDNA FERBER CO doubleday paso pax co service CHAPTER XIV continued 19 perhaps eagerly deno at artmen t some time just my little apartment sp four or six of us or even Ille perhaps rhalls would you like the drake to it looks tuo too much like a roman aloman haul hatli tile pillars scare me lets go BO to tile tie blackstone they went to tile tha blackstone tho head waiter kneif hlin him good evening mr dejong dirk was secretly gratified gratl nod then with ft a shock ile ho realized that the head walter waiter waft grinning at tallas dallas and dallas was grinning grin nin at tile head cad waiter hello andre said dallas aa good 0 0 d miss omara the text of lila 1118 STe reeling sheeting was cerreti cor and befitting benitt ng UK tili head bead walter waiter qt at the slack mack stone bilut autma his voice was lyric and his eyes cloned ills 1114 manner of seating tier her at a was a all enthronement at the thi look jook in dirks eyes cyca 1 I met him lathe army dallas explained when awas I 1 in france iles a grand lad ind atte ive re you in what did you do lu in france arall ier oh odd jobs joba dinner gown was very smart but atthe the pink ribbon strap of an under firment showed untidily at one side bet ber silk brassiere probably paula would have but then a thing like that att aa impossible in paulas perfection t toilette no lie lovid the way tile the gown cut sharply away at the shoulder to lo show her firm white arms arma it dull gold the color of her hair this was waa one dallas there were a dozen a hundred yet she aha was always a the same aine you never knew whether you were going to meet the gamin of the rumpled smock and the smudged face or the beauty of the little fur jacket sometimes dirk thought title she looked like the splendid goddesses you saw in paintings painting s the kind with high pointed breasts and gracious gentle pose holding out it a horn of plenty there was about tier her something genuine and earthy and elemental lie he noticed eliat tier her nails were short and cared for not glittering and pointed p hinted and cruelly sharp and ant horridly vermilion like iaulus Iu ulus that pleased him too somehow some oysters ile he suggested they are perfectly sate safe here or fruit cock tall then breast of guinea lien hen under glass r and an artichoke she looked a little worried if you suppose you tako take that tie ble id like a steak bleak and some potatoes au gratin and a salad anted with russian fine I 1 ile he was delighted iio doubled that order and they consumed it with devastating thoroughness she ate rolls she ato ate butter she sha made ho remarks about the food except to say any once that it was good and that site she had forgotten to eat lunch because she had bad been so busy working all this dirk found most restful and refreshing usually when you dined la in a restaurant with a woman she said oil oh id love to eat some of those crisp little rolls V 1 you said why not invariably tho the answer to this was 1 I barent I 1 goodness Good 1 A half pound at least I 1 enten eaten a roll with butter in a year again you said why not afraid ill get fat automatically you I 1 nonsense youre just right lie ile was bored with these women who talked about their weight figure lines lie thought th it in bad taste paula was always rigidly refraining from this or that it made anade him uncomfortable to sit at the table acing tier her eating his thorough meal while she nibbled fragile curls of melba toast a lettuce leaf and half a sugarless sug arlesa grapefruit it lessened tits his enjoyment of his own oysters steak coffee ile he thought that she always eyed eved his food a little avidly for all tier her expressed indifference to it she was looking a little haggard too the theaters next door he said just a step we dont have to leave here until after eight nice she had tier her cigarette with her coffee in a mellow sensuous atmosphere of enjoyment ile he was talking about himself a good deal ile he felt relaxed ut at ease happy you know im an architect at least I 1 was ono one perhaps why I 1 like to hung hang around your shop so BO I 1 get fiort of homesick for the pencils and the driving twing board the whole thing why did cud you give it up then nothing in it how tk you mean nothing in it vo NO money after the war nobody was bull building dinc oh I 1 suppose if id hung bung on A and then you yon became a banker jilin well there ought ht to be money enough in a bank ile he was waa a little nettled 1 I a banker at first I 1 was a bond sates tu in tin her brows met in a little frown td id rather dallas dalla said slowly plan one back door of a building going to help make this town beautiful and significant than sell all the bonds bonda that ever floated a whatever it w tint beads ar are supposed to float lie ile defended himself 1 I felt that way too hut but you see ace my mother had given TOO me my education really she w worked 0 r ked for it IL I 1 go dubbing along earning just enough to keep me I 1 wanted to give her things I 1 want ed P did she want those things did she che want you to give up architecture lind and go into bonds well she I 1 dont know that she ahe exactly lie ile wa wat j too decent still too much the son bon of selna selina dejong to be able to lie ile about that you said you were going to let me meet tier her would you let me bring her in ill ir r perhaps even would you drive out to the farm with me some day shed like that so much so would 1 I 1 ile he leaned toward tier suddenly listen dallas what do you think of me anyway ille he wanted to know ile he stand not knowing any longer 1 I think youre a nice young roan man that was waa terrible but I 1 dont want you to think im a nice young man I 1 want you to like me a lot tell me what I 1 got that you think I 1 ought to have why do you put me ort off so an many times I 1 never feel that im really near you what la Is it I 1 lack he was waa abject well it 1 youre asking for it I 1 do demand demana of the people I 1 see aee often that they possess at least a splash of applen dor in their makeup some people are nine tenths splendor and one tenth tawdriness like gene meran and some are arc nine tenths tawdriness and one tenth splendor like sam bani huesch but some people are all just a nice even pink without a single patch of royal purple P anil and thata me hm lelm ile ho was horribly disappointed hurt wretched but a little angry too ills pride why lie he was dirk dejong the most mosi successful of Chi cagos younger men tile the most promising the most popular after all what did she do but paint commercial pictures for fifteen hundred dollars apiece what happens liap pens to the men who fall in love with you yoi what do they do dallas stirred tier her coffee thoughtfully they usually tell me about it and then what then they seem to feel better end and we become groat friends but dont you ever fall in love with thorn pretty d d sure of herself dont you ever fall lu in love with them 1 I almost always do said dallas ile he plunged 1 I could give you a lot of things you got purple or no purple im going to france in april parts parla what ayou meant mean I 1 paris what for study I 1 want to do portraits oils lie ho was terrified cant you do there them here oh no not abut I 1 need I 1 have been studying here iva been ta taking na lifework life lifo work three nights a week at the lie art arc institute just to keep my ila hand d lu in I 1 I 1 so where you ore are evenings lie he was strangely relieved let me ilia go with you some soma time will you anything anything she took him with her one evening steering him successfully past tile tho stern irishman Irl sliman who ho guarded the entrance to tile the basement classrooms to tier her locker got into her smock grabbed her brushes went directly to tier her place fell to work at once dirk blinked in tho the strong light lie he glanced at the dais toward which they were all gazing from time to time as they worked on it luy lay a nude woman to himself dirk said in a sort of pante panic why say she got any clothes on I 1 sly gloh 1 this Is fierce ahe got anything cal ue he tried meanwhile to look easy careless car elcya critical strangely enough he succeeded after tho the first shock not only in looking at ease but feeling so go the class was doing the whole figure in oils the model was a moron with a skin like velvet and rose roae petals she fell into poses that flowed like cream her hair was waved la in wooden undulations and tier her nose was wag pure vulgarity and her earrings were drugstore drug store pearin in triple strands but tier her back was MM probably fluer finer than helens and her breasts twin snow snowdrifts drifts peaked with coral in twenty minutes dirk found himself impersonally interested in tone shadows colors line ile ha listened to the low voiced instructor and squinted carefully to ascertain whether that shadow on the models stomach really should be ba painted blue or brown even dirk could see that dallas canvas was almost insultingly superior to that of the men and women about her beneath the flesh on her canvas there were muscles and beneath those muscles blood and bone you felt she had a surgeons knowledge of anatomy it was after eleven when they emerged from tho the art institute doorway end and stood abood a moment together at the top of the broad steps surveying the world that lay befera them dolins laa said nothing suddenly the beauty of the night rushed up ana overwhelmed dirk gorgeousness and tawdriness color and gloom at the right the white tower of the wrigley building rose wraithlike against a background of purple sky straight ahead the hut but of the adams street 1 L station in midair was venetian bridge with the black canal of asphalt lowing flowing sluggishly beneath tile the reflection of cafeteria and clear cigar shop windows on either side were slender shafts of light along the canal an enc enchanting hunting bight nice said dallas A long breath she was a part of all this yes ile he felt an outsider went want a sandwich are you hungry vu im starved they tied had sandwiches and coffee at an all night one arm lunch room because dallas said her face was too dirty for a restaurant and she aldna want to bother to wash it she was more than ordinarily companionable that night a little tired less buoyant and independent than haual this gave tier her a little air of helplessness of fatigue that aroused all his tenderness her ITer smile gave him a warm rush of pure happiness until he saw her they had sandwiches and coate at an all one arm lunchroom smile in exactly the same way at the pimply young man who lorded corded it over the shining nickel cuffee container as slie she told him that his coffee was grand chapter XV the things that hall had mattered so BO vitally seem to be ba important somehow now the people who had bad seemed so desirable had lecome become suddenly insignificant the games lie he tied had played appeared silly games lie ile was seeing things through dallas gomaras OM aras wise beauty loving eyes Stran strange eno enough tygh he did not realize that this girl saw we life from much the same angle as that at which ills his mother regarded I 1 it t in the last few years tits his mother had often offends offen dd him by h v i attitude toward these rich and powerful frier da l of his their ways their ames their amusements their manni ri and tier her we way y of living in turn offended jilin him on hla his rare visits to the farm it seemed to him there was always some drab dejected female in the kitchen or living room or on the porch a woman with broken teeth and comic shoes and tragic eyes drinking great draughts of coffee and telling her boes woes toS ellna malrey dampish ladles indies smelling unpleasantly of peppermint and perspiration and poverty and he aint had a lick of work since november you dont bayl te terrible Ible lie he wished she sometimes old aug hempel drove drova out there and dirk would come upon the two snickering wickedly together about something that he be knew concerned the north shore crowd it had been years since selina had said sociably what did they have for dinner dirk writ well soup nothing before the oh yeh some kind of a one of those canapa things thines you know caviale Cavi are sly my I 1 cavinee Cavi are I 1 sometimes selina giggled like a naughty girl at things that dirk had taken quite seriously the fox hunts for example lake forest had taken to fox hun hunting and the tippecanoe crowd kept kennels ke anela dirk had learned to ride pretty well an englishman sl certain captain stokes beatty had initiated the north shore into the mysteries of fox hunting huntine tile th e north Norths shore learned to say any and conserva conservatory try captain stokes beatty was a tall bowlegged bow legged and somewhat horse borse faced yount young man remote in manner the nice Farn farnham hant girl seemed fated to marry him paula had had a hunt breakfast at storm torm wood wd and it had bad been very J though the american men had balked a little at tile the deviled kidneys the foo food a had been patterned as tar far as possible after the pule flabby viands served at english hunt breakfasts and ruined in an all atmosphere of lukewarm steam the women were slim and perfectly tailored but wore their hunting clothes a trifle uneasily and self consciously like girls in their first low cut party dresses most moat of the men had turned stubborn on the subject of pink coats coata but captain stokes beatty wore his handsomely the fox a worried and somewhat dejected looking animal tied had been shipped in a crate from the south and on being released had a way of sitting sociably in an illinois corn field instead of leaping fleetly to cover at tile the finish you had a feeling of guilt as though you had killed a cockroach dirk had told selina about it feeling rather magnificent A fox hunt A fox hantl 1 what for fort for I 1 why hay any fox hunt forr for 1 I cant imagine they used to be for the purpose of ridding a fox in bested country of a nuisance have the foxes heen bothering ern em out in lake forest now mother dont be funny he H told her about the breakfast well but its so silly dirk its if smart to copy from another country the things that that country does doea better than we do england does gardens and and dogs aa and d tweeds and walking shoes and pipes and leisure better than we do but those lukewarm luke warm wann steamy breakfasts of theirs I 1 its because they gas roost most of them no kansas or nebraska farmers wife would stand for one of their kitchens ketchens not for a minute and the hired man would bulk balk at such bacon she giggled oh well it if youre going to talk like that but dallas omara felt much the same game about these things dallas it appeared had been something of a fad with the north shore society crowd after she had painted mrs lira robinson glimane Oil GlI mans portrait alt slie she tied been invited to dinners and luncheons and dances but their doings she told dirk had bored her nice she said but they dont have much fun all trying to be something not and such hard work the women were always alays explaining that they IN lived ed in chicago because their hwi husbands bands business was here they all do things pretty well dance or paint or ride or write or sing but not welt well enough professional amateurs trying to express something they dont feet feel or that they dont feel strongly enough to make it worth while expressing 11 she admitted though thou gli that they did appreciate the things that other people did well visiting and acknowledged writers painters lecturers heroes they entertained lavishly and hospitably in their florentine or english or spanish or french palaces on the north side of chicago especially foreign notables of this description since 1918 these had descended upon chicago and all america like a plague of locusts starting usually in now new york and sweeping |