In such a mood Olga became a docile and purring tiger kitten, only one never quite forgot her claws. She was highly superstitious, Seagraves discovered; but then her whole character was so anomalous and so replete with unexpectedly outcropping traits and wildly illogical beliefs that it was almost to be expected she would believe in ghosts.
She clung tenaciously to the belief, so Brandon told Seagraves, that some day Paul would return and end the life of the man who—the Terrorist had told his sister shortly before his death—had done him to death.
“Do you still believe, Olga, that Paul is going to come back one day and carry Brandon away with him into the Unknown?” asked Seagraves.
Olga’s dark eyes grew suddenly darker as she slowly removed a cigarette from between her too red lips.
“Not only is he coming,” she answered, “but he is coming soon. Only night before last I talk with him. I tell him hurry. You see his spirit cannot rest until his murder is—ah, my very bad English!—avenge’.”
“You’re a very foolish woman, Olga,” admonished Seagraves. “If you refuse to listen to my warning you’re going to find yourself in lots of trouble. I want you to understand that.”
Then the drowsing tigress put out her claws.
“You threaten me!” she fairly hissed, tossing away her cigarette and rising. “I am a free woman. You are, after all, like my own people. You would make slaves of all who cannot buy their freedom of—of thought and action.”
She glanced about queerly before she concluded:
“Don’t interest yourself too far. You may be great, but remember—I am no longer to be despised. You have waited too long. Should I choose, for example, I could have shot you where you sit.”