e as she walked
down the sala and took the chair Rezanov placed for her. Except for
her Castilian fairness, she looked very like the martinet sitting on
the other side of the table. The Commandante regarded her silently
with brows drawn together. Dimly, he felt apprehension, wondered, in a
flash of insight, if girls held fast to the parental recipe, or
recombined with tongue in cheek. The bare possibility of resistance
almost threw him into panic, but he controlled his features until the
effort injected his eyes and drew in his nostrils. Concha regarded him
calmly, although her heart beat unevenly, for she dreaded the long
strain she foresaw.

"My daughter," said Don Jose finally, his tones harsh with repressed
misgiving, "do you suspect why I have sent for you?"

"I think that his excellency wishes to marry me," replied Concha; and
the Commandante was so staggered by the calm assurance of her tone and
manner that his pent-up emotion exploded.

"Dios!" he roared. "What right have you to know when a man wishes to
marry you? What manner of Spanish girl is this? Truly has his
excellency said that you are not as other women. The place for you is
your room, with bread and water for a week. Sixteen!"

"Ignacio was born when my mother was sixteen," said Concha coolly.

"What of that? She married whom and when she was told to marry."

"I have heard that you serenaded nightly beneath her grating--"

"So did others."

"I have heard that when of all her suitors her father chose one more
highly born, a gentleman of the Viceroy's court, she pined until they
gave their consent to her marriage with you, lest she die."

"But I was a Catholic! The prejudice against my birth was an unworthy
one. I had distinguished myself. And she had the support of the
priests."

"It is my misfortune that M. de Rezanov is not a Catholic, but it will
make no difference. I shall not fall ill, for I am like you, not like
my dear mother--and the education you have given me is very different
from hers. But I shall marry his excellency or no one, and whether I
marry him or live alone with the thought of him until the end of my
mortal days, I do not believe that my soul will be imperilled in the
least."

"You do not!" shouted the irate Spaniard. "How dare you presume to
decide such a question for yourself? What does a woman know of love
until she marries? It is nothing but a sickening imagination before;
and if the man goes, th