"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 hoodwink 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 dismiss it. Russia is too much occupied with Napoleon Bonaparte, who has had himself crowned Emperor, 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 Bourbons that are in Europe. Bonaparte! Do you know him? Have you seen him?" "I have seen him insult poor Markov, our ambassador 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 assume 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 horrifies 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 himself 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 revealed. "And if I know anything of women, I can trust her--for as long as she may be necessary, at all events." III "Santiago!" whispered Concha. "Do not go down to the ship. Take me for a walk. I have much to say."