"Dios!" she interrupted him. "Do you think that your love is greater
than mine? I was born with a thousand years of love in me and had you
not come I should have gone alone with my dreams to the grave. I am
all women in one, not merely Concha Arguello, a girl of sixteen." She
clasped her hands high above her head, lifting her eyes to the ashen
vault so soon to yield to the gay brush of dawn.

"Before all that great mystery," she said solemnly, "I give myself to
you forever, how much or how little that may mean here on earth.
Forever."

XVI

The Commandante of the San Francisco Company sat opposite Rezanov with
his mouth open, the lines of his strong face elongated and relaxed. It
was the hour of siesta, and they were alone in the sala.

"Mother of God!" he exclaimed. "Mother of God! Are you mad,
Excellency?"

"No man was ever saner," said Rezanov cheerfully. "What better proof
would you have than this final testimony to Dona Concha's perfections?"

"But it cannot be! Surely, Excellency, you realize that? The priests!
Ay yi! Ay yi!"

"I think I understand the priests. Persuade the Governor to buy my
cargo and they will look upon me as an amicus humani generis to whom
common rules do not apply. And I have won their sincere friendship."

"You have won mine, senor. But, though I say it, there is no more
devout Catholic in the Californias than Jose Arguello. Do you know
what they call me? El santo. God knows I am not, but it is not for
want of the wish. Did I give my daughter to a heretic, not only should
I become an outcast, a pariah, but I should imperil my everlasting soul
and that of my best beloved child. It is impossible,
Excellency--unless, indeed, you embrace our faith."

"That is so impossible that the subject is not worth the waste of a
moment. But surely, Commandante, in your excitement at this perfectly
natural issue you are misrepresenting yourself. I do not believe,
devout Catholic as you are, that your soul is steeped in fanaticism.
You are known far and wide as the first and most intelligent of His
Catholic Majesty's subjects in New Spain. When you have my word of
honor that your daughter's faith shall never be disturbed, it is
impossible you should believe that marriage with me would ruin her
chances of happiness in the next world. But I doubt if your soul and
conscience will have the peace you desire if you ruin her happiness in
this. What pleasure do you find in the