Page:Rowland--In the shadow.djvu/130

 equal attainments? Am I not the peer of any man physically, mentally, spiritually?" The massive chest swelled; the eyes seemed to protrude, while their rims of white widened; the flat nostrils dilated. "Tell me, Miss Moultrie," he leaned slightly toward her, "is there any reason why I should not take a white woman—an English woman, a woman of good birth—to be my wife if I should ever succeed in becoming the king of Hayti?"

Virginia was unable to speak, to think, to take her fascinated eyes from the eager face. After a time she spoke; answered him in some way which made no impression on either, for her own mind was chaotic and Dessalines' had sunk into a brooding apathy.

The rest of the day was hazy to Virginia. Giles claimed the privilege of paddling her back, as Virginia dimly suspected at a hint from Leyden, whose clear eyes she had attempted to avoid. She resented the gaze of the naturalist; she felt him to be biased, unfair, cold blooded, a trifle cruel. Virginia slept ill that night; visions of Dessalines threw dark shadows athwart her dreams. Two days later he called; several times he rode with Giles and herself. Giles's friendliness toward the Haytian was in no degree diminished, but once or twice when her fiancé was performing some little office for her Virginia had surprised upon the face of Dessalines an expression which shocked and frightened her.

The Haytian joined her one day when she was alone in the gardens; he was supposedly in search of Giles. Virginia was gathering flowers for the luncheon table when his grotesque shadow fell across the rose bushes over which she stooped. 120