Chapter XXIV
Two weeks later, unexpectedly, Ivan Alter arrived at the Fifth Avenue house. He was awaiting Mary in the library when she came downstairs after her afternoon nap.
She looked at him in astonishment. "Am I still asleep?" she gasped. "Am I having nightmares?"
"I knew you'd be glad to see me," he said dryly.
"I'm delighted," she admitted, "and amazed."
"I had to come to New York to paint a dowager," he explained. "Eve rented a furnished studio on Fifty-seventh Street, merely to use until I finish the portrait. I've got to work fast because the old girl looks as though she is falling apart and it is hard to paint fragments. I've got a taxi waiting downstairs. Suppose we go over to the Plaza for afternoon tea. I've so much I'd like to talk about and it's best for us to be somewhere where there is no danger of being overheard."
"Well," Mary meditated, "I don't know. I'm not very keen on taxis. I should use a Mack truck. A young chap named Jimmy Whale who probably will be a member of the family in eighty or ninety years, has an Austin and is continually asking me to go for a ride. I can't make up my mind which part of me would be best for him to take. To take me out completely he'd have to invite me every day for a week. Oh, well, I'll go to the Plaza with you, Ivan, but I want something more substantial than afternoon tea. At least treat me to a club sandwich. I wish Dorothy were home so that you could meet her. However, you can meet her at dinner. Of course you are coming back with me, that is if you are not too stingy with the tea."
During the next few weeks, Ivan was a frequent caller. Dorothy liked him despite the fact that he looked a good deal like an ogre with his large face and shaggy black hair. Dorothy usually was attracted by people who were not cast in ordinary molds. Ivan Alter was well educated. He could talk on any subject and had the gift of making himself interesting. He cared not at all for sham or ceremony. That is why he was so fond of Mary Blaine.
Mary was pleased when she saw Ivan and Dorothy interested in the same things. She closed her eyes and smiled. Here was her opportunity to advance Dorothy's affair with Jimmy Whale. These two stubborn children were obviously made for one another. They'd never marry unless helped out a little by Cupid or his wife.
Mary Blaine in the part of Mrs. Cupid turned out a creditable performance despite the fact that she was overweight for the role.
"I'm glad," she told Dorothy, '"that you like Ivan. He has been a great friend of mine for years. And I guess he's rather lonely in New York. Painting dowagers isn't much diversion. If you can manage to give him a few hours of your time, entertain him a little, I'd be everlastingly grateful."
"I think he's grand," declared Dorothy. "He's stimulating. Always new theories, new ideas, new viewpoints. I've been looking around for some tangible reason to thrust myself upon him. Now you have given me one."
To Ivan, Mary said: "Dorothy likes you. You are always welcome here. Come as often as you can."
Ivan knew that Mary did not give an invitation unless she meant it so he availed himself of this one. The dowager found posing dreadfully fatiguing. She refused to have a sitting every day. That gave Ivan a great deal of time to himself and this time he thereupon turned over to Dorothy. They went out together constantly. It was the least she could do for her Aunt Mary whom she adored.
They visited the Museum of Art and Ivan told' her stories about many of the artists whose pictures were on display. Sometimes they motored on Long Island. They visited all the most famous eating-places, even as far out as "John Duck's" at Eastport.
Everybody was happy except Jimmy Whale. In his sorrow he turned to Mary Blaine for comfort. The only comfort she gave him was a barbed-wire vest. She shook her head dolefully as she pondered over the problem.
"I can't understand what's happening to Dorothy," she murmured. "She's so wrapped up in this man she almost resembles a bundle."
"I think he's horrible," stormed Jimmy.
Mary couldn't help smiling. "Well he does look like the Hesperus three days after the wreck," she admitted. "I wouldn't say anything to Dorothy about this conversation. It wouldn't be good policy. Still it seems an awful pity that Dorothy would throw herself away on a man old enough to be her father."
"She ought to be thrown away," he snorted, "and she ought to be torn up first."
"I doubt if Ivan would agree with you on that."
"He doesn't agree with me at all. He gives me indigestion." Jimmy paused. "Do you really think they're serious?"
"I really think they are," said she, "unless you step in and cut him out."
"If I step in," he said emphatically, "I'll cut him up. As far as I'm concerned this is the end. If she wants that damn Pole, she can have him."
"He isn't a Pole at all," she broke in. "He's Russian with a dash of Scotch and a skimsion of French."
"He's a Pole-cat!"
"He may be at that."
Jimmy jumped to his feet and seized his hat. "I'm not going to stand in the way of such a swell romance. If she wants him she can have him. I'm through with her. Though personally I'd as soon marry a toad."
"You mean as Dorothy?"
"I mean as Ivan."
"But you couldn't very well marry Ivan. The neighbors would talk. They're very narrow-minded. Besides I always thought it was Dorothy you loved."
"I thought so too but I don't now and I never will and I'm sick of her. The sooner she becomes that damned Pole's wife the better. I'm not mourning. I'm glad. It's a good riddance to her. I'm going out West before the week is over."
"You mean West New York?" she asked innocently.
"I mean the West," he said irritably. "The Rocky Mountains. California."
"Going to look for gold?"
"I'm going to try to forget."
"It ought not to be hard to forget a girl you don't love."
"It won't be. Damn her. I've practically forgotten her already."
"Then why go West? There is more gold here."
"I'm disgusted. I want to get as far away from her as possible."
Mary surveyed him and sighed. As Mrs. Cupid she was a complete bust. She had laid out her tents and prepared for a long siege with an occasional clever skirmish.
Now she was forced to fold up her tents and retreat ignominiously. It was awkward, because she had bunions and flat feet.
"Jimmy," she said, "you're a mighty nice lad but frightfully dumb. Dorothy doesn't love Ivan. He is simply a very old and dear friend of mine and she is being nice to him for my sake, because I asked her to. Besides she couldn't marry him because he's Ivan the Terrible."
"And who the hell is that?"
"Don't you know anything at all about history? He's the Czar of all the Russias. He made history more than three hundred years ago. And now he's apparently trying to make eyes at Dorothy. But you needn't worry. A man his age cannot be a very full-blooded opponent."
Even then Jimmy was not quite mollified but he did sit down again. He had evidently postponed his trip to California for a few hours. Nevertheless he was still belligerent.
"If I thought she wanted him," he said, "she could have him."
"Oh, so you actually do like her a little."
"So little that it hardly exists at all."