He spoke quietly at first, then his voice seeming charged with his
leaping ambition set responsive chords within her thrilling. He
pictured to her the state he was going to found, organize, rule, an
uncertain number of fair miles stretching along a tropical coast; he
made her see again a palatial dwelling with servants in livery, the
blue waters of the Gulf, the white of dancing sails. He spoke of a
peace which was going to be declared between warring factions below the
border within thirty days, of the magnificence to be Francisco Villa's,
of the position to be occupied by Jim Galloway at Villa's side. His
planned development of a gold-mine he mentioned merely casually.
And then at length when Florrie was prepared for the passionate
declaration he humbled himself at her feet, lifted his hands to her in
supplication, told her in burning words of his love. Whether the man
did love her with all of the strength of his nature or whether he but
meant to strike through her at John Engle, the richest man of this
section of the State, it was for Jim Galloway alone to know. Certainly
not for Florrie, who listened wide-eyed. . . . Once she thought that
he was about to sweep her up into his arms; they had lifted suddenly
from his sides. She had drawn back, crying sharply: "No, no!" But he
had waited, had again grown deeply deferential, swerving immediately to
further vividly colored pictures of life as it might be, of power and
pomp, of a secure position from which a man and a woman might direct
policies of state, shaping the lives of other men and women.
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