“I’ll tell you the sort of thing we want, Miss O’Mara.” He told her. When he had finished she probably would burst out with three or four plans. The others had done that.
When he had finished she said, “I’ll think about it for a couple of days while I’m working on something else. I always do. I’m doing an olive soap picture now. I can begin work on yours Wednesday.”
“But I’d like to see it—that is, I’d like to have an idea of what you’re planning to do with it.” Did she think he was going to let her go ahead without consulting his judgment!
“Oh, it will be all right. But drop into the studio if you like. It will take me about a week, I suppose. I’m over on Ontario in that old studio building. You’ll know it by the way most of the bricks have fallen out of the building and are scattered over the sidewalk.” She smiled a slow wide smile. Her teeth were good but her mouth was too big, he thought. Nice big warm kind of smile, though. He found himself smiling, too, sociably. Then he became businesslike again. Very businesslike.
“How much do you—what is your—what would you expect to get for a drawing such as that?”
“Fifteen hundred dollars,” said Miss O’Mara.
“Nonsense.” He looked at her then. Perhaps that had been humour. But she was not smiling. “You mean fifteen hundred for a single drawing?”
“For that sort of thing, yes.”
“I’m afraid we can’t pay that, Miss O’Mara.”
Miss O’Mara stood up. “That is my price.” She was not at all embarrassed. He realized that he had never seen such effortless composure. It was he who was fumbling with the objects on his flat-topped desk—a pen, a sheet of paper, a blotter. “Goodbye, Mr. DeJong.” She held out a friendly hand. He took it. Her hair was gold—dull gold, not bright—and coiled in a single great knot at the back of her head, low. He took her hand. The tired eyes looked up at him.
“Well, if that’s your price, Miss O’Mara. I wasn’t prepared to pay any such—but of course I suppose you top-notchers do get crazy prices for your work.”
“Not any crazier than the prices you top-notchers get.”
“Still, fifteen hundred dollars is quite a lot of money.”
“I think so, too. But then, I’ll always think anything over nine dollars is quite a lot of money. You see, I used to get twenty-five cents apiece for sketching hats for Gage’s.”
She was undeniably attractive. “And now you’ve arrived. You’re successful.”
“Arrived! Heavens, no! I’ve started.”
“Who gets more money than you do for a drawing?”
“Nobody, I suppose.”
“Well, then?”
“Well, then, in another minute I’ll be telling you the story of my life.”
She smiled again her slow wide smile; turned to leave. Dirk decided that while most women’s mouths were merely features this girl’s was a decoration.
She was gone. Miss Ethelinda Quinn et al., in the outer office, appraised the costume of Miss Dallas O’Mara from her made-to-order footgear to her made-in-France millinery and achieved a lightning mental reconstruction of their own costumes. Dirk DeJong in the inner office realized that he had ordered a fifteen-hundred-dollar drawing, sight unseen, and that Paula was going to ask questions about it.
“Make a note, Miss Rawlings, to call Miss O’Mara’s studio on Thursday.”
In the next few days he learned that a surprising lot of people knew a surprisingly good deal about this Dallas O’Mara. She hailed from Texas, hence the absurd name. She was twenty-eight—twenty-five—thirty-two—thirty-six. She was beautiful. She was ugly. She was an orphan. She had worked her way through art school. She had no sense of the value of money. Two years ago she had achieved sudden success with her drawings. Her ambition was to work in oils. She toiled like a galley-slave; played like a child; had twenty beaux and no lover; her friends, men and women, were legion and wandered in and out of her studio as though it were a public thoroughfare. You were likely to find there at any hour anyone from Bert Colson, the blackface musical comedy star, to Mrs. Robinson Gilman of Lake Forest and Paris; from Leo Mahler, first violin with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, to Fanny Whipple who designed dresses for Carson’s. She supported an assortment of unlucky brothers and spineless sisters in Texas and points west.
Miss Rawlings made an appointment for Thursday at three. Paula said she’d go with him and went. She dressed for Dallas O’Mara and the result was undeniably enchanting. Dallas sometimes did a crayon portrait, or even attempted one in oils. Had got a prize for her portrait of Mrs. Robinson Gilman at last spring’s portrait exhibit at the Chicago Art Institute. It was considered something of an achievement to be asked to pose for her. Paula’s hat had been chosen in deference to her hair and profile, and the neck line of her gown in deference to hat, hair, and profile, and her pearls with an eye to all four. The whole defied competition on the part of Miss Dallas O’Mara.
Miss Dallas O’Mara, in her studio, was perched on a high stool before an easel with a large tray of assorted crayons at her side. She looked a sight and didn’t care at all. She greeted Dirk and Paula with a cheerful friendliness and went right on working. A model, very smartly gowned, was sitting for her.
“Hello!” said Dallas O’Mara. “This is it. Do you think you’re going to like it?”
“Oh,” said Dirk. “Is that it?” It was merely the beginning of a drawing of the smartly gowned model. “Oh, that’s it, is it?” Fifteen hundred dollars!
“I hope you didn’t think it was going to be a picture of a woman buying bonds.” She went on working. She squinted one eye, picked up a funny little mirror thing which she held to one side, looked into, and put down. She made a black mark on the board with a
