"But what a practice for your diplomatic talents, Excellency! Poor California! At least let me be the first to hear what you have come for?" Her voice dropped to a soft cooing note, although her eyes twinkled. "For the love of God, senor! I am so bored in this life on the edge of the world! To see the seams and ravelings of a diplomatic in-trigue! I have read and heard of many, but never had I hoped to link my finger in anything subtler than a quarrel between priest and Governor, or the jealousy of Los Angeles for Monterey. I even will help you--if you mean no harm to my father or my country. And I am not a friend to scorn, senor, for my blessed father is as wax in my hands, the dear old Governor adores me, and even Padre Abella, who thinks himself a great diplomat, and is watching us out of the corner of his eye, while I make him believe you pay me so many compli-ments my poor little head turns round--Bueno senor!" As she raised her voice she plucked the rose from her dress and tossed it to Rezanov. Then she lifted her chin and pouted her childish lips at the ironical smile of the priest.
Rezanov was close to betraying his surprise; but as he cherished a belief that the souls of all pretty women went to school to the devil before entering upon earthly enterprise, he wondered that he had been open to the illusion of complete ingenuousness in a descendant of one of the oldest and subtlest civilizations of earth. Within that luminous shell of youth there were, no doubt, whispering memories of men and women steeped in court intrigue from birth, of triumphant beauties that had lived for love and their power over the passions of men as ardent as himself. It was quite possible that she might be as useful as she desired. But his impulses were in leash. He merely looked and murmured his ad-miration.
"Better ask, what chance have I, a defenceless man, who has not seen a charming woman for three years, against such practised art? If you can hood-wink a Spanish priest, and manipulate a Governor who has won the confidence of the most suspicious court in Europe, what fortune for a barbarian of the north? Less than with Japan, I should think."
He divested the rose of its thorns and many tight little buds, and thrust the stem underneath the star of St. Ann. She lifted her chin again and tossed her head.
"You do not trust me, but you will. I fancy it will be before long--for it is quite true that the Californians are not so easily outwitted. And--even did I not help you, I would not--I vow, senor!
--betray you. Is it true that Russia is at war with Spain?"
"What?"
"Have you not heard? It was for that we were all so excited this morning. We thought your ship might be the first of a fleet."
"I have heard no such rumor, and you may dis-miss it. Russia is too much occupied with Napo-leon Bonaparte, who has had himself crowned Em-peror, and by this time is probably at war with half Europe--"
She interrupted him with flashing eye. The pink in her cheeks had turned red. The thin nostrils of her pretty Roman nose fluttered like paper. "Ah!" she exclaimed, again with that note of hoarseness in her voice. "There is a great man, not a mere king on a throne his ancestors made for him. Papa hates him because he has seized a throne. AY YI!
DIOS, but you should hear the words fly when we go to war together. But I do not care that"--she snapped her firm white fingers--"for all the Bour-bons that are in Europe. Bonaparte! Do you know him? Have you seen him?"
"I have seen him insult poor Markov, our ambas-sador to France, when I can assure you that he looked like neither a demi-god nor a gentleman.
When you have improved my Spanish I will tell you many anecdotes of him. Meanwhile, am I to as-sume that you reserve your admiration for the man that carves his career in defiance of the rusty old machinery?"
"I do! I do! My father was of the people, a poor boy. He has risen to be the most powerful of all Californians, although the King he adores never makes him Gobernador Proprietario. I tell him he should be the first to recognize the genius and the ambitions of a Bonaparte. The mere thought hor-rifies him. But in me that same strong plebeian blood makes another cry, and if my father had but enough men at his back, and the will to make him-self King of the Californias--Madre de Dios! how I should help him!"
"At least I know her better than she knows me," thought Rezanov, as the inner door was thrown open and another bare room with a long table laden with savory food on a superb silver service was re-vealed. "And if I know anything of women, I can trust her--for as long as she may be necessary, at all events."
