pped
her lashes upon this unalluring vision, and as she did so, inevitably
she began to excuse the man.

None knew better than she every side of the great question that was
shaking not only her life but California itself. Appeal from the
dictum of state and clergy would be a mere waste of time. The only
alternative was flight. That would mean the wreck of Rezanov's avowed
purposes in coming to this quarter of New Spain, and perhaps of others
she dimly suspected. It would mean the very acme of misery for his
Sitkans, and an indefensible blow to the Company. It might even prove
the fatal mistake in his career, for which his enemies were ever on the
alert. He was not communicative about himself except when he had an
object in view, but he had told her something of his life, and his
officers and Langsdorff had told more. He was no silly caballero
warbling and thrumming at her grating when she longed for sleep, but a
man in his forties whose passions were in the leash of a remarkably
acute and ambitious brain. She even thrilled with pride in his
strength, for she knew how he loved her; and although his part was
action, her stimulated instincts taught her that she would rarely be
long from his mind. And what was she to seek to roll stumbling blocks
into the career of a man like that? In this very garden, for four long
days, she had dreamed exalted dreams of the manifold gifts she should
develop for his solace at home and his worldly advancement. She had
once felt all a girl's impatience when her mother's tears made her
father's departure on some distant mission more difficult than need be,
and although she knew now that her capacity for tenderness was as
great, she resolved to mould herself in a larger shape than that.

But she sighed and drooped a little. The burden of woman's waiting
seemed already to have descended upon her. Two years were long--long.
There might be other delays. He might fall ill; he had been ill before
in that barbarous Russian north. And in all that time it was doubtful
if she received a line from him, a hint of his welfare. The Boston and
British skippers came no more, and it was certain that no Russian ship
would visit California again until the treaty was signed and official
news of it had made its slow way to these uttermost shores. She had
resented, in her young ambition and indocility, the chance that had
stranded her, equipped for civilization, on this rim of the world, but
never