Part 11

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."

He did not talk with her again for several days. He called in state, but remained only a few moments. His officers went to several impromptu dances at the Presidio and Mission, but he pleaded fatigue, natural in the damaged state of his constitution, and left the ship only for a gallop over the hills or down the coast with Luis Arguello.

But he had never felt better. At the end of a week his pallor had gone, his skin was tanned and fresh. Even his wretched crew were different men. They were given much leave on shore, and already might be seen escorting the serving-women over the hills in the late afternoon. Rezanov gave them a long rope, although he knew they must be germinating with a mutinous distaste of the Russian north; he kept strict watch over them and would have given a deserter his due without an instant's pause.

The estafette that had gone with Luis' letters to Monterey had taken one from Rezanov as well, asking permission to pay a visit of ceremony to the Governor. Five days later the plenipotentiary received a polite welcome to California, and protest against another long journey; the humble servant of the King of Spain would himself go to San Francisco at once and offer the hospitality of California to the illustrious representative of the Emperor of all the Russias.

Rezanov was not only annoyed at the Governor's evident determination that he should see as little as possible of the insignificant military equipment of California, but at the delay to his own plans for exploration. He knew that Luis would dare take him upon no expedition into the heart of the country without the consent of the Governor, and he began to doubt this consent would be given. But he was determined to see the bay, at least, and he no sooner read the diplomatic epistle from Monterey than he decided to accomplish this part of his purpose before the arrival of the Governor or Don Jose. He knew the material he had to deal with at the moment, but nothing of that already, no doubt, on its way to the north.

Early in the morning after the return of the courier he wrote an informal note to Dona Ignacia, asking her to give him the honor of entertaining her for a day on the Juno, and to bring all the young people she would. As the weather was so fine, he hoped to see them in time for chocolate at nine o'clock. He knew that Luis, who was pressingly included in the invitation, had left at daybreak for his father's rancho, some thirty miles to the south.

There was a flutter at the Presidio when the invitation of the Chamberlain was made known. The compliment was not unexpected, but there had been a lively speculation as to what form the Russian's return of hospitality would take. Concha, whose tides had thundered and ebbed many times since the night of her party, submerging the happy inconsequence of her sixteen years, but leaving her unshaken spirit with wide clarified vision, felt young to-day from sheer reaction. She would listen to no protest from her prudent mother and smothered her with kisses and a torrent of words.

"But, my Conchita," gasped Dona Ignacia, "I have much to do. Thy father and his excellency come in two days. And perhaps they would not approve--before they are here!--to go on the foreign ship! If Luis were not gone! Ay yi! Ay yi!"

"We go, we go, madre mia! And his excellency will give you a shawl. I feel it! I know it! And if we go now we disobey no law. Have they ever said we could not visit a foreign ship when they were not here? We are light-headed, irresponsible women. And if they should not let us go! If the Governor and the Russian should disagree! Now we have the opportunity for such a day as we never have had before. We should be imbeciles. We go, madre mia, we go!"

So it proved. At a few minutes before nine the Senora Arguello, clad in her best black skirt and jacket, a red shawl embroidered with yellow draped over her bust with unconquerable grace, and a black reboso folded about her fine proud head, rode down to the beach with Ana Paula on the aquera behind and Gertrudis Rudisinda on her arm. The boys howled on the corridor, but the good senora felt she could not too liberally construe the kind invitation of a chamberlain of the Russian Court.

Behind her rode Concha, in white with a pink reboso; Rafaella Sal, Carolina Xime'no, Herminia Lopez, Delfina Rivera, the only other girls at the Presidio old enough to grace such an occasion; Sturgis, who happened to have spent the night at the Presidio, Gervasio, Santiago and Lieutenant Rivera. Castro had returned to Monterey, Sal was officer of the day, and the other young men had sulkily declined to be the guests of a man who looked as haughty as the Tsar himself and betrayed no disposition to recognize in Spain the first nation of Europe. But no one missed them. The girls, in their flowered muslins and bright rebosos, the men in gay serapes and embroidered botas, looked a fine mass of color as they galloped down to the beach and laughed and chattered as youth must on so glorious a morning. Even Sturgis, always careful to be as nearly one with these people as his different appearance and temperament would permit, wore clothes of green linen, a ruffled shirt, deer-skin botas and sombrero.

Three of the ship's canoes awaited the guests, and as not one of the women had ever set foot in a boat, there was a chorus of shrieks. Dona Ignacia murmured an audible prayer, and clutched Gertrudis Rudisinda to her breast.

"Madre de Dios! The water! I cannot!" she muttered. But Santiago took her firmly by one elbow, Sturgis by the other, Davidov caught up the children with a reassuring laugh, and in a moment she was trembling in the middle of the canoe. Concha had already leaped into the second and waved a careless little salutation to the Juno. Her eyes sparkled. Her nostrils fluttered. She felt indifferent to everything but the certain pleasure of the day. Rezanov was sure to be charming. What mattered the morrow, and possible nights of doubt, despair, hatred of life and wondering self-contempt?

Rezanov awaited the canoes in the prow of the ship. He wore undress uniform and a cap instead of the cocked hat of ceremony which had excited their awe. He too tingled with a sense of youthful gaiety and adventure. As he helped his guests up the side of the vessel and listened to the delightful laughter of the girls, saw the dancing eyes of even the haughty and reserved Santiago, he also dismissed the morrow from his thoughts.

As Dona Ignacia was hauled to the deck, uttering embarrassed apologies for bringing the two little girls, Rezanov protested that he adored children, patted their heads and told off a young sailor to amuse them.

Four tables on the deck were set with coffee, chocolate, Russian tea, and strange sweets that the cook had fashioned from ingredients to which his skilful fingers had long been strangers.

Dona Ignacia sat beside the host, and when she had tried both the tea and the coffee and had demanded the recipe of the sweets, he said casually: "After breakfast I shall ask you to go down to the cabin for a few moments. I bought the cargo with the Juno, and find there are several articles which I shall beg as a great favor to present to my kindest hostesses and the young girls she has been good enough to bring to my ship. Shawls and ells of cotton and all that sort of thing are of no use to a bachelor, and I hope you will rid me of some of them."

Dona Ignacia lost all interest in the breakfast, and presently, murmuring an excuse, was escorted by Langsdorff down to the cabin. When the light repast was over, Rezanov made a signal to several sailors who awaited commands, and they sprang to the anchor and sails.

"We are going to have a cruise," announced the host to his guests. "The bay is very smooth, there is a fine breeze, we shall neither be becalmed nor otherwise the sport of inclement waters. I know that most of you have never seen this beautiful bay and that you will enjoy its scenery as much as I shall."

He moved to Concha's side and dropped his voice. "This is for you, senorita," he said. "You want change, variety, and I have planned to give you all that I can in one day. I expect you to be happy."

"I shall be," she said dryly, "if only in watching a diplomat get his way. You will see every corner of our bay, and I shall have the delightful sensation of doing something for which I cannot be held responsible."

He laughed. "I am quite willing that you should understand me," he said. "But it is true that I thought as much of you as of myself."

In a few moments the ship was under way. Santiago and Sturgis had gone down to the cabin to reassure Dona Ignacia, who uttered a loud cry as the Juno gave a preliminary lurch. Gervasio and Rivera had opened their eyes as Rezanov abruptly unfolded his plan, but dropped them sleepily before the delight of the girls. After all, it was none of their affair, and what was a bay? If they requested him, as a point of honor, to refrain from examining the battery of Yerba Buena with his glass, their consciences would be as light as their hearts.

As Rezanov stood alone with Concha in the prow of the ship and alternately cast softened eyes on her intense, rapt face, and shrewd glances on the ramifications of the bay, he congratulated himself upon his precipitate action and the collusion of nature. They were sailing east, and would turn to the north in a moment. The mountain range bent abruptly at the entrance to the bay, encircling the immense sheet of water in a chain of every altitude and form: a long hard undulating line against the bright blue sky; smooth and dimpled slopes as round as cones, bare but for the green of their grasses; lofty ridges tapering to hills in the curve at the north but with blue peaks multiplying beyond. There were dense forests in deep canyons on the mountainside, bare and jagged heights, the graceful sweep of valleys, promontories leaping out from the mainland like mammoth crocodiles guarding the bay. The view of the main waters was broken by the largest of the islands, but far away were the hills of the east and the soft blue peaks behind. And over all, hills and valley and canyon and mountain, was a bright opalescent mist. Green, pink, and other pale colors gleamed as behind a thin layer of crystal. Where the sun shone through a low white cloud upon a distant slope there might have been a great globe of iridescent glass illuminated within. The water was a light, soft, filmy yet translucent blue. Concha gazed with parted lips.

"I never knew before how wonderful it was," she murmured. "I have been taught to believe that only the south is beautiful, and when we had to come here again from Santa Barbara it was exile. But now I am glad I was born in the north."