e of flatterers, in daily contact
with the meaner and more disingenuous corners of human nature, is not
conducive to a broad optimism and a sweet and immutable Christianity.
Rezanov inevitably was more or less cynical and blase', and too long
versed in the ways of courts and courtiers to retain more than a
whimsical tolerance of the naked truth and an appreciation of its
excellence as a diplomatic manoeuvre. Nevertheless, he was by nature
too impetuous ever to become under any provocation a dishonest man, and
too normally a gentleman to deviate from a certain personal code of
honor. He might come to California with fair words and a very definite
intention of annexing it to Russia at the first opportunity, but he was
incapable of abusing the hospitality of the Arguellos by making love to
their sixteen-year-old daughter. Had she been of the years he had
assumed, he would have had less scruple in embarking upon a flirtation,
both for the pastime and the use he might make of her. A Spanish
beauty of twenty, still unmarried, would be more than his match. But a
child, however precocious, inevitably would fall in love with the first
uncommon stranger she met; and Rezanov, less vain than most men of his
kind, and with a fundamental humanity that was the chief cause in his
efforts to improve the condition of his wretched promuschleniki, had no
taste for the role of heart-breaker.

But the girl had proved her timeliness; would, if trustworthy, be of
further use in inclining her father and the Governor toward such of his
designs as he had any intentions of revealing; and, weighing carefully
his conversations with her, he was disposed to believe that she would
screen and abet him through vanity and love of intrigue. After the
dinner, in the seclusion of the sala, he had taken pains to explore for
the causes of her mental maturity. Concha had told him of Don Jose
Arguello's ambition that his children in their youth should have the
education he had been forced to acquire in his manhood; he had taught
them himself, and notwithstanding his piety and the disapproval of the
priests, had permitted them to read the histories, travels, and
biographies he received once a year from the City of Mexico. Rezanov
had met Madame de Stael and other bas bleus, and given them no more of
his society than politeness demanded, but although astonished at the
amount of information this young girl had assimilated, he found nothing
in her manner of w