So Big · Chapter 14 (3/3)

Six months later Paula Arnold was married to Theodore A. Storm, a man of fifty, a friend of her father’s, head of so many companies, stockholder in so many banks, director of so many corporations that even old Aug Hempel seemed a recluse from business in comparison. She never called him Teddy. No one ever did. Theodore Storm was a large man⁠—not exactly stout, perhaps, but flabby. His inches saved him from grossness. He had a large white serious face, fine thick dark hair, graying at the temples, and he dressed very well except for a leaning toward rather effeminate ties. He built for Paula a town house on the Lake Shore drive in the region known as the Gold Coast. The house looked like a restrained public library. There was a country place beyond Lake Forest far out on the north shore, sloping down to the lake and surrounded by acres and acres of fine woodland, expertly parked. There were drives, ravines, brooks, bridges, hothouses, stables, a racetrack, gardens, dairies, fountains, bosky paths, keeper’s cottage (twice the size of Selina’s farmhouse). Within three years Paula had two children, a boy and a girl. “There! That’s done,” she said. Her marriage was a great mistake and she knew it. For the war, coming in 1914, a few months after her wedding, sent the Hempel-Arnold interests skyrocketing. Millions of pounds of American beef and pork were shipped to Europe. In two years the Hempel fortune was greater than it ever had been. Paula was up to her eyes in relief work for Bleeding Belgium. All the Gold Coast was. The Beautiful Mrs. Theodore A. Storm in her Gift Shop Conducted for the Relief of Bleeding Belgium.

Dirk had not seen her in months. She telephoned him unexpectedly one Friday afternoon in his office at Hollis & Sprague’s.

“Come out and spend Saturday and Sunday with us, won’t you? We’re running away to the country this afternoon. I’m so sick of Bleeding Belgium, you can’t imagine. I’m sending the children out this morning. I can’t get away so early. I’ll call for you in the roadster this afternoon at four and drive you out myself.”

“I am going to spend the weekend with Mother. She’s expecting me.”

“Bring her along.”

“She wouldn’t come. You know she doesn’t enjoy all that velvet-footed servitor stuff.”

“Oh, but we live quite simply out there, really. Just sort of rough it. Do come, Dirk. I’ve got some plans to talk over with you⁠ ⁠… How’s the job?”

“Oh, good enough. There’s very little building going on, you know.”

“Will you come?”

“I don’t think I⁠—”

“I’ll call for you at four. I’ll be at the curb. Don’t keep me waiting, will you? The cops fuss so if you park in the Loop after four.”