"
"My brother, Daniel, has done very well in Cuba," Lee commented. Savina
was interested:
"I have never been there; cooler climates are supposed to suit my heart
better; but I know I should love it--the close burning days and intense
nights."
"Daniel tells me there's usually the trade wind at night." His voice
reflected his lack of concern.
"I have a feeling," she persisted, "that I am more of Havana than I am,
for example, of Islesboro. Something in the tropics and the people, the
Spanish! Those dancing girls in gorgeous shawls, they haven't any
clothes underneath; and that nakedness, the violence of their passions,
the danger and the knives and the windows with iron bars, stir me. It's
all so different from New York. I want to burn up with a red flower in
my hair and not cool into stagnation."
They were in her closed automobile, where it was faintly scented by
roses yellow and not crimson. She sat upright, withdrawn from him, with
her hands clenched in her lap. How she opposed every quality of Mina
Raff's; what a contradiction the two women, equally vital, presented.
And Fanny, perhaps no less forceful, was still another individual. Lee
Randon was appalled at the power lying in the fragile persons of women.
It controlled the changeless and fateful elements of life; while the
strength of men, it occurred to him further, was concerned with such
secondary affairs as individual ambitions and a struggle eternally
condemned to failure.
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