IN THE SHADOW
and as swiftly closed, and again at the regard Dessalines felt the surging of powerful emotions.
He was in his element now—posing, perfectly clad, in the brilliant sunshine; idling, basking, admired; for this emotion, with others, he had read in the swift glances of the griffonne. Paying compliments was an art in which he was an adept, as in all arts requiring words rather than thought, and manner in the place of mental force. Then he was stared at; they were both stared at; and this was always stimulating to Dessalines. His personality was pitched to the key of the crowd. He could, with ease, harangue an assemblage; he found it difficult to converse with Leyden!
"Madam is no doubt vexed at being obliged to return so soon to Hayti—to leave Paris?" he ventured. She leaned back, rested her head in its cloud of smoky hair and glanced at him from under the long lashes, the eyes mere slits looking along the plane of her cheeks. Madam saved the full blaze of her wonderful eyes for climaxes. She clasped her small, perfectly shaped hands, the fingers of which were loaded with rings which might have aroused the covetousness of a king.
"Ah, does monsieur say 'vexed'? I—to return to Hayti?" She laughed a low, purring, passionate laugh. "Paris and—Hayti! Paris! Poor, decrepit Paris, with its population of emasculates; weak-kneed, senile, decadent Paris—and Hayti!" The lashes swirled upward; the great, changeful eyes gleamed with the glare of an ocelot's. "Hayti! Strong, savage, virile Hayti, with its huge-muscled men, its blazing sunlight, …" her voice sank, "and its black shadows!"—the lashes swept downward.
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