arrival, actually to have kissed her hand in farewell
to the childhood he had been so slow in divining;
grown--he felt rather than analyzed--above the
pettiness of coquetry. Once more she had stirred
the dormant ideals of his early manhood; there
were moments when she floated before his inner
vision as the embodiment of the world's beauty.
Nor ever had there been a woman born more elab-
orately equipped for the position of a public man's
mate; nor more ingenerate, perhaps, with the power
to turn earth into heaven.

He had wondered humorously if he were fallen
in love, but, although he retained little faith in the
activities of the heart after youth, he was begin-
ning seriously to consider the expedience of marry-
ing Concha Arguello. He had not intended to
marry again, and it was this old and passionate
love of personal freedom that alone held him back,
for nothing would be so advantageous to the Russian
colonies in their present crisis as a strong individual
alliance with California. Concha Arguello was the
famous daughter of its first subject, and with the
powerful friends she would bring to her husband,
the consummation of ends dearer to his heart than
aught on earth would be a matter of months instead
of years. And he thrilled with pride as he thought
of Concha in St. Petersburg. Two years of court
life and she would be one of the greatest ladies in
Europe. That he could win her he believed, and