Nevertheless, he was by nature too impetuous ever
to become under any provocation a dishonest man,
and too normally a gentleman to deviate from a
certain personal code of honor. He might come to
California with fair words and a very definite in-
tention of annexing it to Russia at the first oppor-
tunity, but he was incapable of abusing the hospi-
tality of the Arguellos by making love to their six-
teen-year-old daughter. Had she been of the years
he had assumed, he would have had less scruple in
embarking upon a flirtation, both for the pastime
and the use he might make of her. A Spanish
beauty of twenty, still unmarried, would be more
than his match. But a child, however precocious,
inevitably would fall in love with the first uncom-
mon stranger she met; and Rezanov, less vain than
most men of his kind, and with a fundamental hu-
manity that was the chief cause in his efforts to im-
prove the condition of his wretched promuschleniki,
had no taste for the role of heart-breaker.

But the girl had proved her timeliness; would, if
trustworthy, be of further use in inclining her
father and the Governor toward such of his de-
signs as he had any intentions of revealing; and,
weighing carefully his conversations with her, he
was disposed to believe that she would screen and
abet him through vanity and love of intrigue. After
the dinner, in the seclusion of the sala, he had taken
pains to explore for the causes of her mental ma-