IN THE SHADOW
together with Moors, Turks, Hindoos, and Hottentots, for all she knew. Yet this one great, black, mobile face was mirrored in her mind until the break of dawn, when she fell into a sleep of utter exhaustion.
Four hours later when she awoke, although her first thought was of Dessalines, it was quiet, unemotional; she was bitterly angered at the recollection of her broken night's rest.
Giles was alone in the breakfast room when she entered; she was very glad, not only because she loved him, but because everything about Giles was so healthy that he became a natural antidote for a morbid night. As she entered she found him trying his best to establish hostile relations between two fox terrier pups by taking each by the scruff of the neck and rubbing its head against that of its brother. At her light step upon the parquet floor he started like a guilty schoolboy; the pups, roused to the fighting pitch and suddenly released, rolled over and over, two little snapping, snarling masses of rage.
"Hello!" said Giles, looking up and planting a firm and pacifying foot between the pups. "Good thing you came down, Ginny; got so lonely waiting here for you that I had to start a dog fight … what?" He stepped to her side and kissed her heartily.
"Good morning, Giles. Have you been riding?" she asked, looking at his boots. "Why did you not tell me?"
Giles's face fell. "Oh, I say! Would you have gone? I haven't been myself, though. Going to try a new hunter by and by. We'll ride this afternoon, what?"
Virginia looked vexed. "Count Dessalines is coming this afternoon," she said; she felt that she had had almost enough of Dessalines for, some time.
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