Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/143

 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.