Exit a Dictator by E. Phillips Oppenheim

From the moment of her boarding the boat at New York, Anna Prestnoff, who was best known to fame as a scene painter and dress designer to the Russian ballet, performances of which had been occupying the boards of a prominent New York theatre for the last two months, found herself exposed to the whole gamut of more or less courteous devices adopted by the travelling male of amorous proclivities towards making her acquaintance. Cosmopolitan though she was, she had ideas of her own on this subject and set herself sedulously to the task of proving to as many of the other sex as ventured in her direction how obnoxious a really agreeable girl can make herself when harried into a defensive frame of mind. The task, however, apart from being somewhat exhausting, had its disadvantages. A table alone in the saloon meant an uncomfortable and ill-served locality. Absence from the bar smoke-room entailed lukewarm cocktails on deck, and Anna Prestnoff had never developed a taste for lukewarm cocktails. On the second morning of the voyage, she retired to the greater seclusion of the boat deck prepared to renew the contest, but this time the attack upon her solitude assumed a different shape. It was an intrusion, of course, but of a more direct type. She heard the footsteps approaching and had proceeded with her reading unperturbed. No use, however. The footsteps had paused. She found herself addressed by name.

"You have chosen a pleasant corner, Anna Prestnoff. I had some difficulty in finding you."