IN THE SHADOW
"If there were a woman like you, Miss Moultrie," began Dessalines, and his throaty voice throbbed like a bass note of an organ, "a woman with mind and soul and heart—" The deep organ note vibrated; it purred; the purr of some great, striped, jungle cat wooing its mate in the shaded depths of an equatorial forest. "If there were one to be with me, both now and afterwards; one of higher and finer mold, who could direct the great strength of my brain and body, inspire me with confidence," the voice rumbled on, the words lost to Virginia who seemed only to see the swelling pupils, each of which held a twin flame and, as the girl watched, these seemed to coalesce and blur, then fly apart again, "some one who could share my ambitions and my throne!" He swayed slightly toward her.
Virginia drew back shuddering; the lawn, the sea beyond grew vague, whirled together. Dessalines seemed to swell, to mount, to tower like a great black genius summoned from space by some unconscious act of her own. One hand flew to her throat, barely choked back a scream. Dessalines, lost in his fancies, did not see her strangling emotion.
"Did I not once tell you of my highest ambition, Miss Moultrie?" he continued in the same vibratingly caressing voice, "of my dream for bringing about the union of our races; of eliding the point of separation bound to exist while there is a sharply drawn 'color line,' as it is called in this heathen country? Do you not think such a thing possible … surely you do not share in the popular antipathy which is claimed by some to be felt toward my race?"
Virginia, recovered in the respite when he had taken
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