Like all highly seasoned men of the world, he had
no patience with the small vanities of the provincial,
and although diplomatically courteous to all, in his
present precarious position, he had taken too little
trouble to conciliate Gervasio to find him of use in
the absence of his friends.

At the end of three days Rezanov had forgotten
his cargo, and would have sent the Juno to the bot-
tom for ten minutes alone with Concha. He had
been on fire with love of her since the moment of
his actual surrender, and he was determined to have
her if there were no other recourse but elopement.
All his old and intense love of personal freedom
had melted out of form in the crucible of his lover's
imagination. That he should have doubted for a
moment that Concha was the woman for whom his
soul had held itself aloof and unshackled was a
matter for contemptuous wonder, and the pride he
had taken in his keen and swift perceptive faculties
suffered an eclipse. Mind and soul and body he
was a lover, a union unknown before.

On the fourth morning, his patience at an end,
he was about to leave the Juno to demand a formal
interview with Don Jose when he saw Luis and San-
tiago dismount at the beach and enter the canoe al-
ways in waiting. A few moments later they had
helped themselves to cigarettes from the gift of the
Tsar and were assuring Rezanov of their partisan-