I
kept right on, erupting into Captain West's spacious room with the
big brass bed.
Miss West, swathed in a woollen dressing-gown, her eyes heavy still
with sleep, her hair glorious and for the once ungroomed, clinging in
the doorway that gave entrance on the main cabin, met my startled
gaze with an equally startled gaze.
It was no time for apologies. I kept right on my mad way, caught the
foot stanchion, and was whipped around in half a circle flat upon
Captain West's brass bed.
Miss West was beginning to laugh.
"Come right in," she gurgled.
A score of retorts, all deliciously inadvisable, tickled my tongue,
so I said nothing, contenting myself with holding on with my left
hand while I nursed my stinging right hand under my arm-pit. Beyond
her, across the floor of the main cabin, I saw the steward in pursuit
of Captain West's Bible and a sheaf of Miss West's music. And as she
gurgled and laughed at me, beholding her in this intimacy of storm,
the thought flashed through my brain:
SHE IS A WOMAN. SHE IS DESIRABLE.
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