"Tell me your ultimate plans, Pedro mio," said Concha softly. "You are dreaming of something this moment beyond corn and treaties."
"Do you want that final proof?" he asked, smil-ing. "Well, if I could not trust you that would be the end of everything, and I know that I can. I have long regarded California as an absolutely necessary field of supplies, and since I have come here I will frankly say that could I, as the represen-tative of the Tsar in all this part of the world, make it practically my own, I should be content in even a permanent exile from St. Petersburg. I could at-tract an immense colony here and in time import libraries and works of art, laying the foundation of a great and important city on that fine site about Yerba Buena. But now that these kind people have practically adopted me I cannot repay their hospi-tality by any overt act of hostility. I must be con-tent either slowly to absorb the country, in which case I shall see no great result in my lifetime, or--and for this I hope--what with the mess Bonaparte is making of Europe, every state may be at the others' throat before long, including Russia and Spain. At all events, a cause for rupture would not be far to seek, and it would need no instigation of mine to despatch a fleet to these shores. In that case I should be sent with it to take possession in the name of the Tsar, and to deal with these simple, kind--and inefficient people, my dear girl--as no other Russian could. They cannot hold this coun-try. Spain could not--would not, at all events, for she has not troops enough here to protect a territory half its size--hold it against even the 'Americans,' should they in time feel strong enough to push their way across the western wilderness. It is the destiny of this charming Arcadia to disappear; and did Russia forego an opportunity to appropriate a do-main that offers her literally everything except civil-ization, she would be unworthy of her place among nations. Moreover--a beneficent triumph impossi-ble to us otherwise--with a powerful and flourish-ing colony up and down this coast, and sending breadstuffs regularly to our other possessions in these waters until the natives, immigrants, and exiles were healthy, vitalized beings, it would be but a question of a few years before we should force open the doors of China and Japan." He caught Concha from her horse and strained her to him in the mount-ing ardor of his plunge down the future. "You must resent nothing!" he cried. "You must cease to be a Spanish woman when you become my wife, and help me as only you can in those inevitable years I have mapped out; and not so much for myself as for Russia. My enemies have sought to persuade three sovereigns that I am a visionary, but I have already accomplished much that met with resentment and ridicule when I broached it. And I know my powers! I tingle with the knowledge of my ability to carry to a conclusion every plan I have thought worth the holding when the ardor of conception was over. I swear to you that death alone--and I believe that nothing is further aloof--shall prevent my giving this country to Russia be-fore five years have passed, and within another brief span the trade of China and Japan. It is a glorious destiny for a man--one man!--to pass into history as the Russian of his century who has done most to add to the extent and the wealth and the power of his empire! Does that sound vainglorious, and do you resent it? You must not, I tell you, you must not!"
Concha had never seen him in such a mood. Al-though he held her so closely that the horses were angrily biting each other, she felt that for once there was nothing personal in his ardor. His eyes were blazing, but they stared as if a great and prophetic panorama had risen in this silent wood, where the long faded moss hung as motionless as if by those quiet waters that even the most ardent must cross in his time. She felt his heart beat as she had felt it before against her soft breast, but she knew that if he thought of her at all it was but as a part of himself, not as the woman he impatiently desired.
But she was sensible of no resentment, either for herself or her race, which, indeed, she knew to be but a wayfarer in the wilderness engaged in a brief chimerical enterprise. For the first time she felt her individuality melt into, commingle with his: and when he lowered his gaze, still with that intensity of vision piercing the future, her own eyes reflected the impersonalities of his; and in time he saw it.
