It proved to be the most delicate and savory repast that had excited their appetites this side of Europe. The friars had their consolations, and even Dona Ignacia Arguello was less gastronomic than Father Landaeta. Rezanov, whose epicurianism had survived a year of dried fish and the coarse luxuries of his managers, suddenly saw all life in the light of the humorist, and told so many amusing versions of his adventures in the wilderness, and even of his misadventure with Japan, that the priests choked over their wine, and Langsdorff, who had not a grain of humor, swelled with pride in his chance relationship to a man who seemed able to manipulate every string in the human network.
"He will succeed," he said to Davidov. "He will succeed. I almost hoped he would not, he is so indifferent—I might almost say so hostile—to my own scientific adventures. But when he is in this mood, when those cold eyes brim with laughter and ordinary humanity, I am nothing better than his slave."
Rezanov, in reply to an entreaty from Father Uria to tell them more of his mission and of the strange picture-book country they had never hoped to hear of at first hand, assumed a tone of great frankness and intimacy. "We were, with astounding cleverness, treated from the first like an audience in a new theatre. After we had solemnly been towed by a string of boats to anchor, under the Papen mountains, all Nagasaki appeared to turn out, men, women and children. Thousands of little boats, decorated with flags by day and colored lanterns by night, and filled with people in gala attire, swarmed about us, gazed at us through telescopes, were so thick on the bay one could have traversed it on foot. The imperial sailors were distinguished by their uniforms of a large blue and white check, suggesting the pinafores of a brobdingnagian baby. The barges of the imperial princes were covered with blue and white awnings and towed to the sound of kettledrums and the loud measured cries of the boatmen. At night the thousands of illuminated lanterns, of every color and shade, the waving of fans, the incessant chattering, and the more harmonious noise that rose unceasingly above, made up a scene as brilliant as it was juvenile and absurd. In the daytime it was more interesting, with the background of hills cultivated to their crests in the form of terraces, varied with rice fields, hamlets, groves, and paper villas encircled with little gardens as glowing and various of color as the night lanterns. When, at last, I was graciously permitted to have a residence on a point of land called Megasaki, I was conveyed thither in the pleasure barge of the Prince of Fisi. There was place for sixty oarsmen, but as one of the few tokens of respect, I was enabled to record for the comfort of the mighty sovereign whose representative I was, the barge was towed by a long line of boats, decorated with flags, the voices of the rowers rising and falling in measured cadence as they announced to all Japan the honor about to be conferred upon her. I sat on a chair of state in the central compartment of the barge, and quite alone; my suite standing on a raised deck beyond. Before me on a table, marvellously inlaid, were my credentials. I was surrounded by curtains of sky-blue silk and panels of polished lacquer inwrought with the Imperial arms in gold. The awning of blue and white silk was lined with a delicate and beautiful tapestry, and the reverse sides of the silken partitions were of canvas painted by the masters of the country. The polished floor was covered by a magnificent carpet woven with alarming dragons whose jaws pointed directly at my chair of state. And such an escort and such a reception, both of ceremony and of curiosity, no Russian had ever boasted before. Flags waved, kettledrums beat, fans were flung into my very lap to autograph. The bay, the hills, were a blaze of color and a confusion of sound. The barracks were hung with tapestries and gay silks. I, with my arms folded and in full uniform, my features composed to the impassivity of one of their own wooden gods, was the central figure of this magnificent farce; and it may be placed to the ever-lasting credit of the discipline of courts that not one of my staff smiled. They stood with their arms folded and their eyes on the inlaid devices at their feet.
"When this first act was over and I was locked in for the night and felt myself able to kick my way through the flimsy walls, yet as completely a prisoner as if they had been of stone, I will confess that I fell into a most undiplomatical rage; and when I found myself played with from month to month by a people I scorned as a grotesque mixture of barbarian and mannikin, I was alternately infuriated, and consumed with laughter at the vanity of men and nations."
His voice dropped from its light ironical note, and became harsh and abrupt with reminiscent disgust. "And the end of it all was failure. The superb presents of the Tsar were rejected. These presents: coats of black fox and ermine, vases of fossil ivory and of marble, muskets, pistols, sabers, magnificent lustres, table services of crystal and porcelain, tapestries and carpets, immense mirrors, a clock in the form of an elephant, and set with precious stones, a portrait of the Tsar by Madame le Brun, damasks, furs, velvets, printed cotton, cloths, brocades of gold and silver, microscopes, gold and silver watches, a complete electrical machine—presents in all, of the value of three hundred thousand roubles, were returned with scant ceremony to the Nadeshda and I was politely told to leave.
"But the mortification was the least of my worries. The object of the embassy was to establish not only good will and friendship between Russia and Japan, for which we cared little, but commercial intercourse between this fertile country and our northeastern and barren possessions. It would have been greatly to the advantage of the Japanese, and God knows it would have meant much to us."
Then Rezanov having tickled the imaginations and delighted the curiosity of the priests, began to play upon their heartstrings. His own voice vibrated as he related the sufferings of the servants of the Company, and while avoiding the nomenclature and details of their bodily afflictions, gave so thrilling a hint of their terrible condition that his audience gasped with sympathy while experiencing no qualms in their own more fortunate stomachs.
He led their disarmed understandings as far down the vale of tears as he deemed wise, then permitted himself a magnificent burst of spontaneity.
"I must tell you the object of my mission to California, my kind friends!" he cried, "although I beg you will not betray me to the other powers until I think it wise to speak myself. But I must have your sympathy and advice. It has long been my desire to establish relations between Russia and Spain that should be of mutual benefit to the colonies of both in this part of the western hemisphere. I have told you of the horrible condition and needs of my men. They must have a share in the superfluities of this most prodigal land. But I make no appeal to your mercy. Trade is not founded on charity. You well know we have much you are in daily need of. There should be a bi-yearly interchange." He paused and looked from one staring face to the other. He had been wise in his appeal. They were deeply gratified at being taken into his confidence and virtually asked to outwit the military authorities they detested.
Rezanov continued:
"I have brought the Juno heavy laden, my fathers, and for the deliberate purpose of barter. She is full of Russian and Boston goods. I shall do my utmost to persuade your Governor to give me of his corn and other farinaceous foods in exchange. It may be against your laws, and I am well aware that for the treaty I must wait, but I beg you in the name of humanity to point out to his excellency a way in which he can at the same time relieve our necessities and placate his conscience."
"We will! We will!" cried Father Abella. "Would that you had come in the disguise of a common sea-captain, for we have hoodwinked the commandantes more than once. But aside from the suspicion and distrust in which Spain holds Russia—with so distinguished a visitor as your excellency, it would be impossible to traffic undetected. But there must be a way out. There shall be! And will your excellency kindly let us see the cargo? I am sure there is much we sadly need: cloth, linen, cotton, boots, shoes, casks, bottles, glasses, plates, shears, axes, implements of husbandry, saws, sheep-shears, iron wares—have you any of these things, Excellency?"
"All and more. Will you come to-morrow?"
"We will! and one way or another they shall be ours and you shall have breadstuffs for your pitiable subjects. We have as much need of Europe as you can have of California, for Mexico is dilatory and often disregards our orders altogether. One way or another—we have your promise, Excellency?"
"I shall not leave California without accomplishing what I came for," said Rezanov.
Concha boxed Rosa's ears twice while being dressed for the ball that evening. It was true that excitement had reigned throughout the Presidio all day, for never had a ball been so hastily planned. Don Luis had demurred when Concha proposed it at breakfast; officially to entertain strangers not yet officially received exceeded his authority. Concha, waxing stubborn with opposition, vowed that she would give the ball herself if he did not. Business immediately afterward took the Commandante ad. in. down to the Battery at Yerba Buena. Before he left he gave orders that the large hall in the barracks, where balls usually were held, should be locked and the key given up to no one but himself. He returned in the afternoon to find that Concha had outwitted him. The sala of the Commandante's house was very large. The furniture had been removed and the walls hung with flags, those of Spain on three sides, the Russian, borrowed by Santiago from the ship, at the head of the room. Concha laughed gaily as Luis stormed about the sala rasping his spurs on the bare floor.
"Whitewashed walls for guests from St. Petersburg!" she jeered, as Luis menaced the flags. "We have little enough to offer. Besides—what more wise than to flaunt our flag in the face of the Russian bear? Their flag, of course, is a mere idle compliment. Let me tell you two things, Luis mio: this morning I invited the Russians to dance to-night, and told Padre Abella to ask all our neighbors of the Mission besides; and Rafaella Sal helped me to drape every one of those flags. When I told her you might tear them down, she vowed that if you did she would dance all night with the Bostonian."
Luis lifted his shoulders and mustache to express an attitude of contemptuous resignation, but his face darkened, and a moment later he left the room and strolled up the square to the grating of Rafaella Sal.
Concha well knew that the frank gray eyes of the Bostonian—all citizens of the United States were Bostonians in that part of the world, for only Boston skippers had the enterprise to venture so far—were for no one but herself. But his face was bony and freckled, and his figure less in height and vigor than her own. He was rich and well-born, but shy and very modest. Concha Arguello, La Favorita of California, was for some such dashing caballero as Don Antonio Castro of Monterey, or Ignacio Sal, the most adventurous rider of the north. Meanwhile he could look at her and adore her in secret, and Dona Rafaella Sal was very kind and danced as well as himself. He never dreamed that he was being used as a stalking horse to keep alive in the best match in the Californias the jealous desire for exclusive possession that had animated him in 1800 when he had applied through the Viceroy of Mexico for royal consent to his marriage with the Favorita of her year. That was six years ago and never a word had come from Madrid. Luis was faithful, but men were men, and girls grew older every day. So the wise Rafaella was alternately indifferent and alluring, the object of more admiration than a maid could always repel, yet with wells of sentiment that only one man could discover. And the American was patient, and even had he known, would not in the least have minded the use she made of him. He still could look at Concha Arguello.
William Sturgis had sailed in one of his father's ships, now six years ago, from Boston in search of health. The ship in a dense fog had gone on the rocks in the straits between the Farallones and the Bay of San Francisco. He alone, and after long hours of struggle with the wicked currents, not even knowing in what direction land might be, was flung, senseless, on the shore below the Fort. For the next month he was an invalid in the house of the Commandante. Fortunately, his papers and money were sewn in an oilskin belt and his father's name was well known in California. Moreover, there never was a more likable youth. His illness interested all the matrons and maids of the Presidio in his fate; when he recovered, his good dancing and unselfishness gave him a permanent place in the regard of the women, while his entire absence of beauty, and his ability to hold his own in the mess room, established his position with the men.
In due course word of his plight reached Boston, and a ship was immediately despatched, not only to bring the castaway home, but with the fine wardrobe necessary to a young gentleman of his station. But the same ship brought word of his father's death—his mother had gone long since—and as there were brothers enamored of the business he hated, he decided to remain in the country that had won his heart and given him health. For some time there was demur on the part of the authorities; Spain welcomed no foreigners in her colonies. But Sturgis swore a mighty oath that he would never despatch a letter uninspected by the Commandante, that he would make no excursions into the heart of the country, that he would neither engage in traffic nor interfere in politics. Then having already won the affections of the Governor, he was permitted to remain, even to rent an acre of land from the Church in the sheltered Mission valley, and build himself a house. Here he raised fruit and vegetables for his own hospitable table, chickens and game cocks. Books and other luxuries came by every ship from Boston; until for a long interval ships came no more. One of these days, when the power of the priests had abated, and the jealousy which would keep all Californians landless but themselves was counterbalanced by a great increase in population, he meant to have a ranch down in the south where the sun shone all the year round and he could ride half the day with his vaqueros after the finest cattle in the country. He should never marry because he could not marry Concha Arguello, but he could think of her, see her sometimes; and in a land where a man was neither frozen in winter nor grilled in summer, where life could be led in the open, and the tendency was to idle and dream, domestic happiness called on a feebler note than in less equable climes. In his heart he was desperately jealous of Concha's favored cavaliers, but it was a jealousy without hatred, and his kind, earnest, often humorous eyes, were always assuring his lady of an imperishable desire to serve her without reward. Of course Concha treated him with as little consideration as so humble a swain deserved; but in her heart she liked him better than either Castro or Sal, for he talked to her of something besides rodeos and balls, racing and cock-fights; he had taught her English and lent her many books. Moreover, he neither sighed nor languished, nor ever had sung at her grating. But she regarded him merely as an intelligence, a well of refreshment in her stagnant life, never as a man.
"Rose," she said, as she caught her hair into a high golden comb that had been worn in Spain by many a beauty of the house of Moraga, and spiked the knot with two long pins globed at the end with gold, while the maid fastened her slippers and smoothed the pink silk stockings over the thin instep above; "what is a lover like? Is it like meeting one of the saints of heaven?"
"No, senorita."
"Like what, then?"
"Like—like nothing but himself, senorita. You would not have him otherwise."
"Oh, stupid one! Hast thou no imagination? Fancy any man being well enough as he is! For instance, there is Don Antonio, who is so handsome and fiery, and Don Ignacio, who can sing and dance and ride as no one else in all the Californias, and Don Weeliam Sturgis, who is very clever and true. If I could roll them into one—a tamale of corn and chicken and peppers—there would be a man almost to my liking. But even then—not quite. And one man—what nonsense! I have too much color to-night, Rosa."
"No, senorita, you have never been so beautiful. When the lover comes and you love him, senorita, you will think him greater than our natural king and lord, and all other men poor Indians."
"But how shall I know?"
"Your heart will tell you, senorita."
"My heart? My father and my mother will choose for me a husband whom I shall love as all other women love their husbands—just enough and no more. Then—I suppose—I shall never know?"
"Would you marry at your parents' bidding, like a child, senorita? I do not think you would."
Concha looked at the girl in astonishment, but with a greater astonishment she suddenly realized that she would not. Even her little fingers stiffened in a rush of personality, of passionate resentment against the shackles bound by the ages about the feminine ego. Her individuality, long budding, burst into flower; her eyes gazed far beyond her radiant image in the mirror with a look of terrified but dauntless insight; then moved slowly to the girl that sat weeping on the floor.
"I know not what thy sin was," she said musingly. "But I have heard it said thou didst obey no law but thine own will—and his. Why should the punishment have been so terrible? Thou hast sworn to me thou didst not help to murder the woman."
"I cannot tell you, senorita. You will never know anything of sin; but of love—yes, I think you will know that, and before very long."
"Before long?" Concha's lips parted and the nervous color she had deprecated left her cheeks. "What meanest thou, Rosa?" Her voice rose hoarsely.
And the Indian, with the insight of her own tragedy, replied: "The Russian has come for you, senorita. You will go with him, far away to the north and the snow. These others never could win your heart; but this man who looks like a king, and as if many women had loved him, and he had cared little— Oh, senorita, Carlos was only a poor Indian, but the men that women love all have something that makes them brothers—the Great Russian and the poor man who goes mad for a moment and kills one woman that he may live with another forever. The great Russian is free, but he is the same, senorita—he too could kill for love, and such are the men we women die for!"
Concha, ambitious and romantic, eager for the brilliant life the advent of this Russian nobleman seemed to herald, had assured Santiago that he would love her; but they had been the empty words of the Favorita of many conquests; of love and passion she had known, suspected, nothing. As she watched Rosa, huddled and convulsed, little pointed arrows flew into her brain. Girls in those old Spanish days went to the altar with a serene faith in miracles, and it was a matter of honor among those that preceded their friends to abet the parents in a custom which assuredly did not err on the side of ugliness. Concha had a larger vocabulary than other Californians of her sex, for she had read many books, and if never a novel, she knew something of poetry. Sturgis had filled the sala with the sonorous roll of his favorite masters and it had pleased her ear; but the language of passion had been so many beautiful words, neither vibrating nor lingering in her consciousness. But the rude expression of the miserable woman at her feet, whose sobs grew more uncontrollable every moment, made it forever impossible that she should prattle again as she had to Santiago and Rezanov in the last day and night; and although she felt as if straining her eyes in the dark, her cheeks burned once more, and she rose uneasily and walked to the window.
She returned in a moment and stood over Rosa, but her voice when she spoke had lost its hoarseness and was cold and irritated.
"Control thyself," she said. "And go and bathe thine eyes. Wouldst look like a tomato when it is time to pass the dulces and wines? And think no more of thy lover until he can come out of prison and marry thee." She drew herself away as the woman attempted to clutch her skirts. "Go," she said. "The musicians are tuning."
"The sash, Excellency?" Jon longed to see his master in full regalia once more, and after all, was not this an embassy of a sort? But Rezanov, who already regarded his reflection with some humor, shook his head.
"I'll go as far as decency permits, for no one is so impressed by external magnificence as the Spaniard. But full dress uniform and orders are enough; an ambassador's sash and they might suspect I took them for the children they are. Children are not always fools. My stock is too tight. Remember that I am to dance, and am too tall for most women's pretty little ears. And I doubt if an ear is less thirsty for being so provocatively screened."
Jon, a "prince" whose family had fallen upon evil days long since, but whose thin, clever fingers were no mean inheritance, unwound and readjusted the folds of soft batiste, that most becoming neck vesture man has ever worn. He fain would have pressed the matter of the sash, but Rezanov, most indulgent of masters to this devoted servant, was never patient of insistence. Jon also regretted the powdered wig and queue, which he privately thought more befitting a fine gentleman than his own hair, even though the latter were thick and bright. He said tentatively:
"I notice these Californians still wear the hair long; and with their gay ribbons and showy hats look much better no doubt than if they followed a fashion of which it would seem they had not heard—and perhaps do not admire. I ventured to pack two of your excellency's wigs when we were leaving St. Petersburg—"
"Good heavens, no!" cried Rezanov, rising to his feet and casting a last impatient glance at the mirror. "When a man has escaped from a furnace does he run back of his own accord? My brain would cook under a wig in this climate, and I need all my wits—for more reasons than one." And he went up on deck.
There, while awaiting his horses and escort, he had another glimpse of the happy Arcadian life of the Californians. Over the sand hills through which he had floundered twice that day rode young men in gala attire, a maiden, her attire as brilliant as the sunset along the western summits, on the saddle before them. These saddles were heavy with silver, the blanket beneath was embroidered with both silver and gold. Gay light laughter floated out on the cool evening breeze to the little ship in the harbor.
"It has been a good day," thought Rezanov, lowering his glass. "It is like her to arrange so charming a finale."
When he arrived at the Presidio the guitars were tinkling and the sala was full of eager and somber faces. The Californians had come early, determined to witness the arrival of the Russians. Very pretty most of the girls were, and by no means a bevy of brunettes. There was hair of every shade of brown, looped over the ears, drawn high and confined by the high comb and the long pins; and Rafaella Sal, with her red hair and gray eyes, was still celebrated as a beauty, although no longer in her first youth—she was twenty-two, and should have been a matron and mother long since! But she looked very handsome and coquettish in her daring yellow frock that no other red head would have dared to wear, and she displayed three ropes of Baja California pearls; one strand being the common possession. The matrons, young and old, wore heavy satins or brocades, either red or yellow, but the maids were in flowered silks, sometimes with coquettish little jacket, generally with long pointed bodice and full flowing skirt. Concha's frock was made in this fashion, but quite different otherwise; an aunt in the City of Mexico being mindful at whiles of the cravings of relatives in exile. It was of a soft shimmering white stuff covered with gold spangles and cut to reveal her young neck and arms. She stood at the head of the room with her mother as Rezanov entered, and he noticed for the first time how tall she was. She held herself proudly; mischievous twinkle, nor child-like trust, nor flashing coquetry possessed her eyes; these, even more star-like than usual, nevertheless looked upon her guests with a dignified composure. Her lips, her skin, were luminous. In this well-cut evening gown he saw that her figure was superb; and that she could command stateliness as well as vivacity moved her toward a pedestal in his regard that had been occupied by few and never for long.
Rezanov, in his splendid uniform and blazing orders, filled the sala with his presence as he walked past the rows of bright critical eyes toward his hostesses. The young lips of the maids parted with delight and the men frowned. For the first time William Sturgis felt the sickness of jealousy instead of its not unagreeable pain. Davidov and Khostov, both handsome and well-bred young men, were also in full naval uniform, and by no means ignored; while Langsdorff, in the severe black of the scholar, was an admirable foil.
Rezanov, wondering at the subtle change in Concha, bowed ceremoniously and murmured: "You will give me the first dance, senorita?"
"Certainly, Excellency. Are you not the guest of honor?"
She motioned to the Indian musicians, fiddles and guitars fairly leaped to position, and in a moment Rezanov enjoyed the novel delusion of encircling a girl's floating wraith.
"We can waltz, you see! Are you not surprised?"
"It is but one accomplishment the more. I feared a preference for your native dances, but ventured to hope you would teach me."
"They are easy to learn. You will watch us dance the contra-danza after this."
"With whom do you dance it?"
Her black eyelashes were very thick; he barely caught the glance she shot him.
"The Russian bear growls," she said lightly. "Did you expect to dance every dance with me?"
"I came for no other purpose."
"You would have several duels to fight to-morrow."
"I have no objection."
"You have fought others, then?" Her voice was the softer with the effort to turn its edge.
"No more than most men, I suppose. May I ask how many have been fought for you?"
"My memory is no better than yours. Why should I burden it with trifles?"
"True. It doubtless is charged with matters far more serious than the desires of mere men. Tell me, senorita, what is your dearest wish?" He had bent his head and fixed his powerful gaze on her stubborn lashes. As he hoped, she raised startled eyes in which an angry glitter dawned.
"My dearest wish? If I had one should I tell you? Why do you ask me such a question?"
"Because I lit a candle at the Mission to-day that you might realize it," he answered, smiling.
To his surprise he saw a flash of terror in her eyes before she dropped them, and felt her shiver. But she answered coldly:
"You have wasted a candle, senor. I have never had a wish that was not instantly gratified. But I thank you for the kind thought. Will you finish this waltz with my friend, and the fiancee of Luis, Rafaella Sal? She has quarrelled with Luis, I see; Don Weeliam is dancing with Carolina Xime'no, and she cares to waltz with no one else. Pardon me if I say that no one has ever waltzed as well as your excellency, and I must not be selfish."
"I will release you if you are tired, but otherwise I shall do myself the honor to waltz with your friend later."
"I must look after my other guests," she said coldly; and he was led with what grace he could summon to the fair but sulky Rafaella.
"How am I to help flirting with that girl?" he thought as he mechanically guided another light and graceful partner through the crowded room. "If she were one girl I might resist. But since eleven o'clock yesterday morning she has been three. And if she was twenty yesterday, twelve this morning, she is twenty-eight to-night, and this might be a court ball in Madrid. I shall leave the day after I bring the Governor to terms."
He sat beside Dona Ignacia during the contra-danza and found the scene remarkably brilliant and animated considering the primitive conditions. In addition to the bright flags on the wall and the vivid colors of the women, the officers of the Presidio and forts wore full dress uniform, either white coats with red velvet vest, red pantaloons and sash, or white trousers and scarlet coat and waistcoat faced with green. The young men from the Mission wore small clothes of a black silk, fastened at the knee with silver buckles, and white silk stockings; two gentlemen from Monterey wore the evening costume of the capital, dove-colored small clothes, with white silk waistcoat and stockings, and much fine lawn and lace. The room was well lighted by many wicks stuck in lumps of tallow. The Indian musicians, soldiers recruited from a superior tribe in the Santa Clara valley, were clad almost entirely in scarlet, and danced sometimes as they played; and Indian girls, in short red skirts and snow-white smocks open at the throat, their long hair decorated with flowers and ribbons, already passed about wine and dulces. The windows were open. The sweet night air blew in.
The contra-danza was not unlike the square dances of England except that it was far more graceful, and the men rivalled the women in their supple glidings and bendings, doublings and swayings. Concha danced with Ignacio Sal, Rafaella with William Sturgis; their pliant grace, as facile as grain rippling before the wind, would have put the best ballet in Europe to the blush. Concha's skirts swept Rezanov's feet, her little slippers twinkled before his admiring eyes, and he lost no sinuous turn or undulation of her beautiful figure; but she never vouchsafed him a glance.
When the dance finished his host introduced him to the prettiest of the girls and he paid them as many compliments as their heads would stand. He even took some trouble to talk to them, if only to fathom the sources of their unlikeness to Concha Arguello. He concluded that the gulf that separated her from these charming, vivacious, shallow young girls was not dug by education alone. Individualities were rare enough in Europe; out here, in earthly, but sparsely settled paradises, they must be rarer still; but that one had wandered into the lovely shell of Concha Arguello he no longer doubted. The fact that it had developed haphazardly, with little or no help from her sentience, and was still fluid and uncertain, but multiplied her in interest and charm. The women to whom he was accustomed knew themselves, consequently were no riddle to a man of his experience, but here he had an odd sense of having entered into a compact in the dark with a girl who might one day symbolize some high and impassioned ideal he had cherished in the days before ideals had been cast aside with the negative virtues that bred them.
As he coolly studied the good looks of the young caballeros and the plain intellectual face and slight little figure of the Bostonian, noted the utter indifference with which they were treated by the Favorita of Presidio and Mission, he felt a sudden rush of arrogance, a youthful tingling of nerves, the same prophetic sense of imminent happiness and power that his first contact with the light electrical air and the beauty of the country had induced. After all, he was but forty-two. Life on the whole had been very kind to him. And, although he did not realize it as yet, his frame, blighted by the rigors of the past three years, was already sensible to a renewal of juice and sap. He admitted that he was more interested than he had been for many years, and that if he was not in love, he tingled with a very natural masculine desire for an adventure with a pretty girl.
But he was by no means a weak man, and his mind counted the cost even while his imagination hummed. He had almost decided to bid Dona Ignacia an abrupt good-night, pleading fatigue, which his pallor indorsed, when the door of the dining-room was thrown open to the liveliest of fiddling, and a white hand with a singular suggestion of tenacity both in appearance and clasp took possession of his arm.
"My mother has gone to Gertrudis Rudisinda, who is crying," said Concha. "It is my pleasure to lead your excellency in to supper."
They sat side by side at the head of the long table almost covered by the massive service of silver and loaded with evidences of Dona Ignacia's generosity and skill; chickens in red rice and gravy, oysters, tamales, dulces, pastries, fruits and pleasant drinks. Luis, with Rafaella Sal dimpling and sparkling at his side, and now quite resigned to the semi-official nature of the ball, rose and drank the health of the distinguished guest in long and flowery praises. Rezanov responded in briefer but no less felicitous vein, and concluded by remarking that the only rift in the lute of his present enchanting experience was the fear that whereas he had nearly died of starvation several times during the past three years, he was now threatened with a far more ignominious end, so delicious and irresistible were the temptations that beset the wayfarer in this most hospitable land. Both speeches were gaily applauded, the conversation became animated and general, and Concha dropped her voice to the attentive ear beside her.
"You were very successful to-day at the Mission, Excellency."
"May I ask how you know?"
"I never saw anything so serenely—arrogantly, perhaps would be a truer description—triumphant as your bearing when you walked down our humble sala to-night. You looked like Caesar returned from Gaul; but I suppose that all great conquests are merely the sum of many small ones."
"I do not regard the friendship of so shrewd a man as Father Abella a trifling conquest. And according to yourself, dear senorita, it is essential to the success of a mission upon which many lives and my own honor depend."
"Is it really so serious?" she asked with a faint sneer.
He drew himself up stiffly and his light eyes glowed with anger. "It is a subject I never should have thought of introducing at a festivity like this," he said suavely. "May I be permitted to compliment you, senorita, upon your marvellous grace in the contra-danza? It quite turned my head, and I am delighted to hear that you will dance alone after supper."
Her face had flushed hotly. She dropped her eyes and her voice trembled as she replied: "You humiliate me, senor, and I deserve it. I—my poor Rosa told me something of her great tragedy while dressing me, and for the moment other things seemed unimportant. What is hunger and court favor beside a broken heart and a desolate life? But that of course is the attitude of an ignorant girl." She raised her eyes. They were soft, and her voice was softer. "I beg that you will forgive me, senor. And be sure that I take an even deeper interest in your great mission than yesterday. I have thought much about it, and while I have told my mother nothing, I have expressed certain peevish hopes that a ship would not come all the way from Sitka without taking a hint more than one Boston skipper must have given, and brought us many things we need. She is quite excited over the prospect of a new shawl for herself, and of sending several as presents to the south; besides many other things: cotton, shoes, kitchen utensils. Have you any of these things, Excellency?"
Rezanov stared at her face, barely tinted with color, dully wondering why it should be so different from the one roguish, pathetically innocent, that had haunted him all day. He asked abruptly:
"Which is the friend whose little ones you envy? You have made me wish to see them and her?"
"That is Elena—beside Gervasio." She indicated a young woman with soft, patient, brown eyes, the dignity of her race and the sweetness of young motherhood, who would have looked little older than herself had it not been for an already shapeless figure. "I can take you to-morrow to see them if you wish."
She had cast down her eyes and her face was white. Still he groped on.
"Pardon me if I say that I am surprised your parents should permit such a woman as this Rosa to attend you. Why should your happy life be disturbed by the lamentations of an abandoned creature—who can do you no good, and possibly much harm?"
Still Concha did not raise her eyes. "I do not think poor Rosa would do anyone harm. But perhaps it were as well she went elsewhere. We have had her long enough. I have taken a dislike to her. I reproach myself bitterly, but I cannot help it. I should like never to see her again."
"What has she told you?" Concha glanced up swiftly. His eyes were blazing. She felt quite certain that he rolled a Russian oath under his tongue, and she made a slight involuntary motion toward him, her lips trembling apart.
"Nothing," she murmured. "I do not know—I do not know. But I no longer wish her near me. She—life is very strange and terrible, senor. You know it well—I, so little."
Rezanov felt his breath short and his hands cold. For a moment he made no reply. Then he smiled charmingly and said in the conventional tone that was ever at his command: "Of course you know little of life in this Arcadia. One who hopes to be numbered among the best of your friends prays that you never may. Yes, senorita, life is strange—strangely commonplace and disillusionizing—but sometimes picturesque. Believe me when I say that nothing stranger has ever befallen me than to find out here on the lonely brink of a continent nearly twenty thousand versts from Europe, a girl of sixteen with the grand manner, and an intellect without the detestable idiosyncrasies of the fashionable bas bleus I have hitherto had the misfortune to encounter."
She was tapping the table slowly with her fork, and he noted that her soft, childish mouth was set. "No doubt you are quite right to put me off," she said finally, and in a voice as even as his own. "And my intellect would do me little good if it did not teach me to ignore mysteries I can never hope to fathom. There is no such thing as life in your sense in this forgotten corner of the world, nor ever will be in my time. If you come back and visit us twenty years hence you will find me fat and worn like Elena, and busy every minute like my mother—unless, indeed, I marry Don Weeliam Sturgis and become a great lady in Boston. It would not be so mean a fate."
Rezanov darted a look of angry contempt at the pale young man who was eating little and miserably watching the handsome pair at the head of the table. "You will not marry him!" he said briefly.
"I could do far worse." Concha's lashes framed an adorable glance that sent the blood to the hair of the sensitive youth. "You have no idea how clever and good he is. And—Madre de Dios!—I am so tired of California."
"But you are a part of it—the very symbol of its future, it seems to me. I wish I had a sculptor in my suite. I should make him model you, label the statue 'California,' and erect it on the peak of that big island out there."
"That is very poetical, but after all, you are only saying that I am a pretty savage with an education that will be more common in the next generation. It is little consolation for an existence where the most exciting event in a lifetime is the arrival of a foreign ship or the inauguration of a governor." And once more she smiled at Sturgis. He raised his glass impulsively, and she hers in gay response. A moment later she gave the signal to leave the table. Rezanov followed her back to the sala chewing the cud of many reflections.
Concha had eaten no supper. As she entered the sala she clapped her hands, the guests ranged themselves against the wall, the musicians, livelier than ever, flew to their instruments; with the drifting, swaying movement she could assume at will, she went slowly, absently, to the middle of the room. Then she let her head drop backward, as if with the weight of her hair, and Rezanov, vaguely angry, expected one of those appeals to the senses for which Spanish women of another sort were notorious. But Concha, after tapping the floor alternately with the points and the wooden heels of her slippers, for a few moments, suddenly made an imperious gesture to Ignacio Sal. He sprang to her side, took her hand, and once more there was the same monotonous tapping of toes and heels. Then they whirled apart, bent their lithe backs until their brows almost touched the floor in a salute of mock admiration, and danced to and from each other, coquetry in the very tilt of her eyebrows, the bare semblance of masculine indulgence on his eager, passionate face. Suddenly to the surprise of all, she snapped her fingers directly under his nose, waved her hand, turned her back, and made a peremptory gesture to that other enamoured young swain, Captain Antonio Castro of Monterey. Don Ignacio, surprised and discomfited, retired amidst the jeers of his friends, and Concha, with her most vivacious and gracious manner, met Castro half way, and, taking his hand, danced up and down the sala, slowly and with many improvisations. Then, as they returned to the center of the room and stepped lightly apart before joining in a gay whirl, she snapped her fingers under HIS nose, made a gesture of dismissal over her shoulder, and fluttered an uplifted hand in the direction of Sturgis. Again there was a delighted laughter, again a discomforted knight and a triumphant partner.
"Concha always gives us something we do not expect," said Santiago to Rezanov, whose eyes were twinkling. "The other girls dance El Son and La Jota very gracefully—yes. But Conchita dances with her head, and the musicians and the partner, when she takes one, have all they can do to follow. She will choose you, next, senor."
Rezanov turned cold, and measured the distance to the door. "I hope not!" he said. "I should hate nothing so much as to make an exhibition of myself. The dances I know—that is all very well—but to improvise—for the love of heaven help me to get out!"
But Santiago, who was watching his sister intently, replied: "Wait a moment, Excellency. I do not think she will choose another. I know by her feet that she intends to dance El Son—in her own way, of course—after all."
Concha circled about the room twice with Sturgis, lifted him to the seventh heaven of expectancy, dismissed him as abruptly as the others. Lifting her chin with an expression of supreme disdain for all his sex, she stood a moment, swaying, her arms hanging at her sides.
"I am glad she will not dance with Weeliam," muttered Santiago. "I love him—yes; but the Spanish dance is not for the Bostonian."
Rezanov awaited her performance with an interest that caused him some cynical amusement. But in a moment he had surrendered to her once more as a creature of inexhaustible surprise. The musicians, watching her, began to play more slowly. Concha, her arms still supine, her head lifted, her eyes half veiled, began to dance in a stately and measured fashion that seemed to powder her hair and dissolve the partitions before an endless vista of rooms. Rezanov had a sudden vision of the Hall of the Ambassadors in the royal palace at Madrid, where, when a young man on his travels, he had attended a state ball. There he had seen the most dignified beauties of Europe dance at the most formal of its courts. But Concha created the illusion of having stepped down from the throne in some bygone fashion to dance alone for her subjects and adorers.
She raised her arms, barely budding at the top, with a gesture that was not only the poetry of grace but as though bestowing some royal favor; when she curved and swayed her body, again it was with the lofty sweetness of one too highly placed to descend to mere seductiveness. She glided up and down, back and forth, with a dreamy revealing motion as if assisting to shape some vague impassioned image in the brain of a poet. She lifted her little feet in a manner that transformed boards into clouds. There were moments when she seemed actually to soar.
"She is a little genius!" thought Rezanov enthusiastically. "Anything could be made of a woman like that."
It was not her dancing alone that interested him, but its effect on her audience. The young men had begun with audible expressions of approval. They were now shouting and stamping and clapping. Suddenly, as once more she danced back to the very center of the room, her bosom heaving, her eyes like stars, her red lips parted, Don Ignacio, long since recovered from his spleen, invaded his pocket and flung a handful of silver at her feet. It was a signal. Gold and silver coins, chains, watches, jewels, bounced over the floor, to be laughingly ignored. Rezanov looked on in amazement, wondering if this were a part of the performance and if he should follow suit. But after a glance at the faces of the young men, lost to everything but their passionate admiration for the unique and beautiful dancing of their Favorita, and when Sturgis, after wildly searching in his pockets, tore a large pearl from the lace of his stock, he doubted no longer—nor hesitated. Fastened by a blue ribbon to the fourth button of his closely fitting coat was a golden key, the outward symbol of his rank at court. He detached it, then made a sudden gesture that caught her attention. For a moment their eyes met. He tossed her the bauble, and mechanically she lifted her hand and caught it. Then she laughed confusedly, shrugged her shoulders, bowed graciously to her audience, and signalled to the musicians to stop. Rezanov was at her side in a moment.
"You must be tired," he said. "I insist that you come out on the veranda and rest."
"Very well," she said indifferently; "it is quite time we all went out to the air. Santiago mio, wilt thou bring my reboso—the white one?"
Santiago, more flushed than his sister at her triumphs, fetched the long strip of silk, and Rezanov detached her from her eager court and led her without. Elena Castro followed closely, yet with a cavalier of her own that her friend might talk freely with this interesting stranger. The night air was cool and stimulating. The hills were black under the sparks of white fire in the high arch of the California sky. In the Presidio square were long blue shadows that might have been reflections of the smoldering blue beyond the stars. Rezanov and Concha sat on the railing at the end of the "corridor."
"It is a custom—all that very material admiration?" he asked.
"A very old one, but not too often followed. Otherwise we should not prize it. But when some Favorita outdoes herself then she receives the greatest reward that man can think of—gold and silver jewels. We do not dare to return the tributes in common fashion, but they have a way of appearing where they belong as soon as their owners are supposed to have forgotten the incident. As you are not a Californian, senor, I take the liberty of returning this without any foolish subterfuge." She handed him his contribution. "I thank you all the same. It was a spontaneous act, and I am very proud."
He accepted the key awkwardly, not daring to press it upon her, with the obvious banalities. But he felt a sudden desire to give her something, and, nothing better offering, he gathered half a dozen roses and laid them on her lap.
"I was disappointed that you did not wear your roses to-night," he said. "I associate them with you in my thoughts. Will you put one in your hair?"
She found a place for two and thrust another in the neck of her gown. The rest she held closely in her hands. Then he noticed that she was very white, and again she shivered.
"You are cold and tired," he murmured, his eyes melting to hers. "It was entrancing, but I hope never to see you give so much of yourself to others again." His hand in arranging the reboso touched hers. It lingered, and she stared up at him, helplessly, her eyes wide, her lips parted. She reminded him of a rabbit caught in a trap, and he had a sudden and violent revulsion of feeling. He rose and offered his arm. "I should be a brute if I kept you talking out here. Slip off and go to bed. I shall start the guests, for I am very tired myself."