Then had come the sudden and passionate woo-
ing of Rezanov. All other ideals and aspirations
had fled. She had alternated between the tragic
extremes of bliss and despair. So completely did
the ardor of her nature respond to his, so fierce and
primitive was the cry of her ego for its mate, that
she cared nothing for the distress of her parents
nor the fate of California. There is no love com-
plete without this early and absolute selfishness,
which is merely the furious determination of the
race to accomplish its object before the spirit
awakens and the passions cool.

Last night life had seemed serious; she had been
girlishly, romantically happy. It is true that her
heart had thumped against the wall as he kissed her,
and that she had been full of a wild desire to sing,
although she could hardly shape and utter the words
that danced in her throbbing brain. But she had
been conscious through it all of the romantic circum-
stance, of the lonely beauty of the night, of the de-
lightful wickedness of meeting her lover in the si-
lence and the dark, even with a wall ten feet high be-
tween them. For the wall, indeed, she had been
confusedly and deliciously grateful.

And this was what a man's love came to: ardors
by night and expedience by day! Or was it merely
that Rezanov was the man of affairs always, the
lover incidentally? But how could a man who had