"You can do nothing with it but injure a man who has been kind to you," she pleaded. "And if you use the information you have, and afterwards repent, it will be too late to remedy your error. Give it to me, and return to France with the proud consciousness that you are worthy the position you wish to occupy."
Hannibal shook his head with decision.
"That would be very well if I ever could be considered a man by the one for whose opinion I care most. But while I am to her a creature something below the ape, a mere crawling viper whose touch is pollution, I will act like the thing she thinks me. To-day I possess the power to make a high-born gentleman dance whenever I pull the string. You ask me to give up this power, and in return you offer—nothing."
"One would suppose," remarked Daisy, struggling with herself in this dilemma, "that the ability to inflict pain was one a true nature would delight to surrender. My father has done no harm to you."
The negro bent toward her and spoke with vehemence.
"But his daughter has! She has made my life wretched. Whatever position I may attain will be worthless to me, without the love I had hoped might be mine."
"Love!" cried the girl, recoiling. "Love!"
"Love and marriage," he replied. "In France we could live without the hateful prejudices that prevail in America. I have natural ability enough, you have told me so a thousand times, and I could make myself worthy of you. As my wife—"
Daisy rose and interrupted him fiercely.