Page:Rowland--In the shadow.djvu/69

 and musicians playing out of tune in minor keys, and half-frightened Circassian dancing girls "

"That is what one might expect," said Lady Maltby, "but it is far from being the case. Giles tells me that he is horribly conventional and very religious."

"How creepy!"

"Let us go out, my dear," said Lady Maltby. "Really, there is scarcely room for him in a house! We will have tea in the pagoda."

On the driveway they met Giles and Dessalines returning.

"A study in black and white," said Lady Maltby in a low voice. "But I thought that he was very much taller." Virginia herself was surprised to see that there was no greater disparity in height. Giles was an even six feet, Dessalines three inches taller; Giles was big with a sturdy, well-proportioned Anglo-Saxon girth of limb and body, whereas the massivity of the Haytian was almost grotesque in some of its dimensions, but while of a strange and alien type, was yet not unpleasing in effect. Dessalines could not have greatly exceeded Giles in many of his measurements, yet owing to the comparatively greater size of his huge, bony structures he would have weighed perhaps fifty pounds more; the Haytian's herculean strength owed its source to this massive ponderance of bone.

The contrast was startling: Giles, with his fair complexion, sunny hair, sparkling blue eyes, seemed a creature of the full day of civilization, while Dessalines appeared to have not yet emerged from the black night of paganism.

Nevertheless they knew that he had given ample 59