IX

"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.

X

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."