And he meets the girl, Concha Arguello. He sees her in the setting of burning and sweet Castilian roses--a girl who has had the benefit of education, who keeps the graces of old Madrid in this realm beyond sea, a burgeoning bud of womanhood, daughter of the commandante. The doom of both is upon them at once. They have drunk the poisoned cup. Rezanov resists the first approaches of the delightful delirium, remembering Russia, his duty, his ambition, the poor starving men of the Sitka factory. At a party he dances with Concha and they both know that for each there is none other. So in that setting so wild, so strange, so remote, so lovely for the old world grace that is made native there by this bright, deep, fond girl, the high gods proceed to have their will upon the two. The little community life pulses around them the faster because they are there. Their love becomes a motive in the diplomatic drama which has for end, first, the securing of food for those famishing folk at Sitka, and beyond that, possibly the seizing of the region for Russia, lest that new young power of the West, the United States, preempt the rich domain. Concha would help the Russian to those ends immediate which he reveals to her, and succeeds. He tells her of Russia and his mighty position there. He would have her for his wife, his helper in the vast imperial affairs at the Russian capitol, his princess in his palace, augmenting his official and personal distinction. She shares his vision, rising to all the heights it unfolds in a splendid future. Child she is, but she is transformed into a woman by the prospect not of her own pleasure, but of participation in splendid achievement with this man so keen, so supple, yet so firm in high purpose. And as the prospect opens to her desire and his there looms the obstacle. They cannot marry, for Rezanov is a heretic. And now the passion flames. This child woman will go with him. Ah, but the church, the king of Spain, will they permit? And the Czar! Rezanov will see to it that the Czar will clear the way for them through power exercised at Rome and at Madrid. Conditioned upon this, the girl's parents consent. These lovers prate very little of love. Their desire runs too deep for mere speech. It is a desire made up of as much spiritual as carnal fire. It is fierce but steady in ecstacy and agony, indistinguishable the one from the other. Rezanov, man of the great world, it purifies. Concha it strengthens and makes indomitable. They will abide delay. They will endure in faith and hope--the faith and hope both dimmed by the vague and unshakable intuition or premonition that fate has marked them for derision. Nevertheless, they will endure.