It was the same in Rio Janeiro, Buenos Aires and Santiago,—and it would be even worse in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. The Americans, she had heard, were the worst of them all. They didn't know the first thing about the majesty of sex. The Indian, she understood, was an exception. From all accounts, he knew how to treat his woman.
She was homesick. Her heart leaped with joy when she discovered in Percival what she believed to be a domineering, masterful man. He had been neither servile, nor polite, nor afraid. He had treated her,—at least for an illuminating, transcendent ten minutes,—as if she were the dirt under his feet,—and he was an American at that. True, he had apologized a little later on, and had blushed quite becomingly in doing so, but nothing,—nothing in the world,—would ever make her believe that he was not the sort of man who could be depended upon to put a woman in her place and keep her there. He might apologize until he was black in the face and still be unable to take back the words he had uttered. Notwithstanding that he, in his apology, professed to have mistaken her in the darkness for one of the Portuguese immigrant women who didn't understand a word of English, she forgave him quite humbly, and that was going pretty far for Olga Obosky, whose identity ought not to have been a matter of doubt, even on the darkest of nights.
She was a lithe, perfectly formed young woman, beautiful in an unusual way. Her body was as sinuous as that of a woodland nymph. Indeed, in one of her most spectacular dances, she appeared as a nymph, barefooted, bare-legged, and,—as Mrs. Spofford caustically remarked,—bare-faced. She possessed the marvellously clear, colourless complexion found only among the purely Slavic women. Her lips were red and sensuous, her eyes darkly mysterious and brooding, her hair as black as the raven's wing.
When she smiled her face became strikingly alive, radiant, transforming her into a jolly, good-natured, wholesome girl in whom not the faintest trace of the carnal was left. Every move, every thought, every impulse was feminine; her imagination was feminine; she cast the spell of her femininity over all with whom she came in contact. Primitively sensuous, she was also primitively wary,—and so she was ineffably feminine.
Prior to the time of her dramatic encounter with the American, she had favoured him with no more than a glance or two of curiosity. He was a stowaway; for a brief while he was suspected of being involved in the plot to blow up the ship. That was enough for her. Twice she had seen Miss Clinton talking with him, and once, just before the storm set in, she had paused to watch the young American girl renew the bandages on his hands after dressing the burns. Half an hour after he had apologized for speaking so roughly to her, she decided that it was her duty to hunt him up and minister to him. The ship was rolling terribly, the din of the elements was deafening, but Olga Obosky was not a faint-hearted person. She went forth boldly, confidently. Terrified, clinging observers marvelled at her sure-footedness, at the graceful way in which her sinuous body bent itself to the perilous heavings of the vessel.
She found him in the reading-room, seated in a corner. Miss Clinton was readjusting the bandage on one of his hands. Half a dozen people were in the room, manfully defying the turmoil that had sent nearly every one else to bed in terror and distress. Without hesitation the dancer joined the couple in the corner. Her smile was engaging; a faint line between her eyebrows signified the concern she felt for him.
WEST WIND DRIFT
Miss Clinton looked up from her work. Her smile was politely accusative,—and brief.
“It is all my fault,” began Madame Obosky, standing before them, her feet wide apart, her knees bent slightly to meet the varying slants and lurches of the vessel. She spoke the English language confidently and well. Her accent, which was scarcely noticeable, betrayed the fact that she had mastered French long before attempting English. There was a piquant boldness in the occasional misplacing of words and in the haphazard construction of sentences. She was unafraid.
“I have subject him to much pain and discomfort,” she went on, addressing the girl. “Those poor hand! It is I who should kiss them, Mademoiselle, not you.”