Rezanovs, what opposition in California against the
tide thundering down from the north? Then, per-
haps, the city that had travelled from the brain of
the Russian to hers when the fog had rolled over
the heights; the towers and palaces and bazaars, the
thousand little golden domes with the slender cross
atop; the forts on the crags and the villas in the
hollows, and on all the island and hills. But when
she and her lover were dust. When she and her
lover were dust.

But she was too young and too ardent to listen
long to the ravens of the spirit. Two years are not
eternity, and in happiness the past rolls together like
a scroll and is naught. She fell to dreaming. Her
lips that had been set with the gravity of stone re-
laxed in warm curves. The color came back to her
cheek, the light to her eyes. She was a girl at her
grating with the roses poignant above her, and the
world, radiant, alluring, and all for her, swimming
in the violet haze beyond.



XXII

Rezanov in those days was literally lord and mas-
ter at the Presidio. If he did not burn the house of
his devoted host he ran it to suit himself. He
turned one of its rooms into an office, where he re-