Page:So Big (1924).djvu/345

 He was a little nettled. “I wasn’t a banker—at first. I was a bond salesman.”

Her brows met in a little frown. Her eyebrows were thick and strongly marked and a little uneven and inclined to meet over her nose. Paula’s brows were a mere line of black—a carefully traced half-parenthesis above her unmysterious dark eyes. “I'd rather,” Dallas said, slowly, “plan one back door of a building that’s going to help make this town beautiful and significant than sell all the bonds that ever floated a—whatever it is that bonds are supposed to float.”

He defended himself. “I felt that way, too. But you see my mother had given me my education, really. She worked for it. I couldn’t go dubbing along, earning just enough to keep me. I wanted to give her things. I wanted”

“Did she want those things? Did she want you to give up architecture and go into bonds?”

“Well—she—I don’t know that she exactly” He was too decent—still too much the son of Selina DeJong—to be able to lie about that.

“You said you were going to let me meet her.”

“Would you let me bring her in? Or perhaps you'd even—would you drive out to the farm with me some day. She’d like that so much.”

“So would I.”

He leaned toward her, suddenly. “Listen, Dallas. What do you think of me, anyway?” He wanted to know. He couldn't stand not knowing any longer.