Part 23

As the party on the corridor broke, Rezanov found no difficulty in reaching Concha's side, for even Dona Ignacia was chattering wildly with several other good dames who renewed their youth briefly at the bull-fight.

"Did you enjoy that?" he asked curiously.

"I did not look at it. I never do. But I know that you were not affronted. You never took your eyes from those dreadful beasts."

"I am exhilarated to know that you watched me. Yes, at a bull-fight the primitive man in me has its way, although I have the grace to be ashamed of myself afterward. In that I am at least one degree more civilized than your race, which never repents."

The door of one of the smaller rooms stood open, and as they took advantage of this oversight with a singular concert of motive, he clasped both her hands in his. "Are you angry with me?" he asked softly. He dared not close the door, but his back was square against it, and the other guests were moving down to the refectory.

"For liking such horrid sport?"

"We have no time to waste in coquetry."

Her eyes melted, but she could not resist planting a dart. "Not now--I quite understand: love could never be first with you. And two years are not so long. They quickly pass when one is busy. I shall find occupation, and you will have no time for longings and regrets."

They were not yet alone, women were talking in their light, high voices not a yard away. The hindrance, and her new loveliness in the soft mantilla, the pink of the roses reflected in her throat, the provocative curl of her mouth, sent the blood to his head.

"You have only to say the word," he said hoarsely, "and the Juno will sail to-night."

Never before had she seen his face so unmasked. Her voice shook in triumph and response.

"Would you? Would you?"

"Say the word!"

"You would sacrifice all--the Company--your career--your Sitkans?"

"All--everything." His own voice shook with more than passion, for even in that moment he counted the cost, but he did not care.

But Concha detected that second break in his voice, and turned her head sadly.

"You would not say that to-morrow. I hate myself that I made you say it now. I love you enough to wait forever, but I have not the courage to hand you over to your enemies."

"You are strangely far-sighted for a young girl." And between admiration and pique, his ardor suffered a chill.

"I am no longer a young girl. In these last days it has seemed to me that secrets locked in my brain, secrets of women long dead, but of whose essence I am, have come forth to the light. I have suffered in anticipation. My mind has flown--flown--I have lived those two years until they are twenty, thirty, and I have lived on into old age here by the sea, watching, watching--"

She had dropped all pretence of coquetry and was speaking with a passionate forlornness. But before he could interrupt her, take advantage of the retreating voices that left them alone at last, she had drawn herself up and moved a step away. "Do not think, however," she said proudly, "that I am really as weak and silly as that. It was only a mood. Should you not return I should grieve, yes; and should I live as long as is common with my race, still would my heart remain young with your image, and with the fidelity that would be no less a religion than that of my church. But I should not live a selfish life, or I should be unworthy of my election to experience a great and eternal passion. Memory and the life of the imagination would be my solace, possibly in time my happiness, but my days I should give to this poor little world of ours; and all that one mortal, and that a woman, has to bestow upon a stranded and benighted people. It may not be much, but I make you that promise, senor, that you will not think me a foolish, romantic girl, unworthy of the great responsibilities you have offered me."

"Concha!" He was deeply moved, and at the same time her words chilled him with subtle prophecy, sank into some unexplored depth of his consciousness, meeting response as subtle, filling him with impatience at the mortality of man. He glanced over his shoulder, then took her recklessly in his arms.

"Is it possible you doubt I will come back?" he demanded. "My faith?"

"No, not that. But such happiness seems to me too great for this life."

He remembered how often he had been close to death; he knew that during the greater part of the next two years he should see the glimmer of the scythe oftener yet. For a moment it seemed to him that he felt the dark waters rise in his soul, heard the jeers of the gods at the vanity of mortal will. But the blood ran strong and warm in his veins. He shook off the obsession, and smiled a little cynically, even as he kissed her.

"This is the hour for romance, my dear. In the years to come, when you are very prosaically my wife with a thousand duties, and grumbling at my exactions, your consolation will be the memory of some moment like this, when you were able to feel romantic and sad. I wish I could arrange for some such set of memories for myself, but I am unequal to your divine melancholy. When I cannot see you I am cross and sulky; and just now--I am, well--philosophically happy. Some day I shall be happier, but this is well enough. And I can harbor no ugly presentiments. As I entered California I was elated with a sense of coming happiness, of future victories; and I prefer to dwell upon that, the more particularly as in a measure the prophetic hint has been fulfilled. So make the most of the present. I shall see you daily during this last precious fortnight, for I am determined this arrangement shall cease; and you must exorcise coquetry and abet me whenever there is a chance of a word alone."

She nodded, but she noted with a sigh that he said no more of sudden flight. She would never have consented to jeopardize the least of his interests, but she fain would have been besought. The experience she had had of the vehemence and fire in Rezanov made her long for his complete subjugation and the happiness it must bring to herself. But as he smiled tenderly above her she saw that his practical brain had silenced the irresponsible demands of love, and although she did not withdraw from his arms she stiffened her head.

"I fancy I shall return home to-morrow," she said. "My mother tells me that she can live without me no longer, and that Father Abella has reminded her that if I stay in the house of Elena Castro I shall be as free from gossip as here. I infer that he has rated my two parents for making a martyr of me unnecessarily, and told them it was a duty to enliven my life as much as possible before I enter upon this long period of probation. The grating of my room at Elena's is above a little strip of Garden, and faces the blank wall of the next house. Sometimes--who knows?" She shrugged her shoulders and gave a gay little laugh, then stood very erect and moved past him to the door. She had recognized the shuffling step of Father Abella.

"Is supper ready, padre mio?" she asked sweetly. "His excellency and I have talked so much that we are very hungry."