Whether Concha were giving him her promised aid he had no means of discovering, and herein lay another cause of his general vexation. He had dined every day at the Commandante's, danced there every night. Concha had been vivacious, friendly--impersonal. Not so much as a coquettish lift of the brow betrayed that the distinguished stranger eclipsed the caballeros for the moment; nor a whispered word that he retained the friendship she had offered him on the day of their meeting.
He had not, indeed, had a word with her alone.
But his interest and admiration had deepened. It was evident that her father and the Governor adored her, would deny her little. Her attitude to them was alternately that of the petted child and the chosen companion. As her mother was indisposed, she occupied her place at the table, presiding with dignity, guiding the conversation, revealing the rare gift of making everyone appear at his best. In the evening she had sometimes danced alone for a few moments, but more often with her Russian guests, and readily learning the English country dances they were anxious to teach. Rezanov would have found the gay informality of these evenings delight-ful had his mind been at ease about his Sitkans, and Concha a trifle more personal. He had begun by suspecting that she was maneuvering for his scalp, but he was forced to acquit her; for not only did she show no provocative favor to another, but she seemed to have gained in dignity and pride since his arrival, actually to have kissed her hand in farewell to the childhood he had been so slow in divining; grown--he felt rather than analyzed--above the pettiness of coquetry. Once more she had stirred the dormant ideals of his early manhood; there were moments when she floated before his inner vision as the embodiment of the world's beauty.
Nor ever had there been a woman born more elab-orately equipped for the position of a public man's mate; nor more ingenerate, perhaps, with the power to turn earth into heaven.
He had wondered humorously if he were fallen in love, but, although he retained little faith in the activities of the heart after youth, he was begin-ning seriously to consider the expedience of marry-ing Concha Arguello. He had not intended to marry again, and it was this old and passionate love of personal freedom that alone held him back, for nothing would be so advantageous to the Russian colonies in their present crisis as a strong individual alliance with California. Concha Arguello was the famous daughter of its first subject, and with the powerful friends she would bring to her husband, the consummation of ends dearer to his heart than aught on earth would be a matter of months instead of years. And he thrilled with pride as he thought of Concha in St. Petersburg. Two years of court life and she would be one of the greatest ladies in Europe. That he could win her he believed, and without undue vanity. He had much to offer an ambitious girl conscious of her superiority to the men of this province of Spain, and chafing at the prospect of a lifetime in a bountiful desert. His only hesitation lay in his own doubt if she were worth the loss of his freedom, and all that word involved to a man of his position and adventurous spirit.
He shrugged his shoulders at this argument; he had walked off some of his ill-humor, and reverted willingly to a theme that alone had given him satis-faction during the past few days. At the same time he made a motion as if flinging aside an old burden.
"It is time for such nonsense to end," he thought contemptuously. "And in truth these three years should have wrought such changes in me I doubt I should have patience for an hour of the old trifling.
My greatest need from this time on, I fancy, is work. I could never be idle a month again. And when a man is in love with work--and power--and has passed forty--does he want a constant com-panion? That is the point. At my time of life power exercises the most irresistible and lasting of all fascinations. A man that wins it has little left for a woman."
He had reached the summit of the rocky outpost; the highest of the hills where the peninsula turned abruptly to the south, and, scrupulously refraining from a downward glance at the Battery of Yerba Buena, stood looking out over the bay to the eastern mountains: dark, almost formless, wrapped in the intense and menacing mystery of that last hour be-fore dawn.
"Senor!" called a low cautious voice.
Rezanov stepped hastily back from the point of the bluff and glanced about in wonder, his pulses suddenly astir. But he could see no one.
This time the direction was unmistakable, and he went to the edge of the plateau facing the south and looked over. Halfway down a shallow and almost perpendicular gully, he saw a girl forcing a mustang up the harsh, loose path. The girl's white and oval face looked from the folds of a black re-boso like the moon emerging from clouds, and its young beauty was out of place in that wild and for-bidding setting. She reined in her horse as she caught his eye and beckoned superfluously; then guided her mustang to a little ledge where he could plant his feet firmly, permitting her to reassume her usual pride of carriage and averting the danger of a sudden scramble or need of assistance.
As Rezanov reached her side, she gave him a grave and friendly smile, but no opportunity to kiss her hand.
"I have followed your excellency," she said. "I saw you leave the Juno, and as I am often up at this hour, and as no one else ever is, my father ignores the fact that I sometimes ride alone. I have never come as far as this before, but there is some-thing I wish to say to you, and there is no oppor-tunity at home. I asked Santiago to find me one last night, but he was in a bad temper and would not. Men! However--I suppose you have heard nothing of the cargo?"
"I have not," said Rezanov grimly, although acutely sensible that the subject suited neither his mood nor the hour.
