Page:So Big (1924).djvu/368

 of beauty then I must look like Helen of Troy to you, Roelf.”

“You do,” said Roelf, simply.

Inside Dirk something was saying, over and over, "You're nothing but a rubber stamp, Dirk DeJong. You’re nothing but a rubber stamp.” Over and over.

“These dinners!” exclaimed the General. “I do not wish to seem ungracious, but these dinners! Much rather would I remain here on this quiet and beautiful farm.”

At the porch steps he turned, brought his heels together with a sharp smack, bent from the waist, picked up Selina’s rough work-worn hand and kissed it. And then, as she smiled a little, uncertainly, her left hand at her breast, her cheeks pink, Roelf, too, kissed her hand tenderly.

“Why,” said Selina, and laughed a soft tremulous little laugh, “Why, I’ve never had my hand kissed before.”

She stood on the porch steps and waved at them as they were whirled swiftly away, the four of them. A slight straight little figure in the plain white blouse and the skirt spattered with the soil of the farm.

“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