had promptly accepted it. Now, as he reflected that
it had been given by a girl of sixteen, he was divided
between admiration of her precocity and fear lest
she prove to be too young to keep a secret. More-
over, there were other considerations.

Rezanov, although in his earlier years he had so
far sacrificed his interests and played into the hands
of his enemies, in avoiding the too embarrassing par-
tiality of Catherine the Great, had nevertheless held
a high place at court by right of birth, and been a
man of the world always; rarely absent from St.
Petersburg during the last and least susceptible part
of the imperial courtesan's life, the brief reign of
Paul, and the two years between the accession of
Alexander and the sailing of the Nadeshda. More-
over, there was hardly another court of importance
in Europe with which he was not familiar, and few
men had had a more complete experience of life.
And the life of a courtier, a diplomat, a traveller,
noble, wealthy, agreeable to women by divine right,
with active enemies and a horde of flatterers, in
daily contact with the meaner and more disin-
genuous 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 whim-
sical tolerance of the naked truth and an apprecia-
tion of its excellence as a diplomatic manoeuvre.