The eastern mountains looked very close from the crest of La Bellissima and of a singular transpar-ency and variety of hue. It was as if the white masses of cloud sailing low overhead flung down great splashes of color from prismatic stores stolen from the sun. There was a vivid pale green on the long sweep of a rounding slope, deep violet and pale purple in dimple and hollow, red showing through green on a tongue of land running down from the north; and on the lower ridges and little islands, pale and dark blue, and the most exquisite fields of lavender. This last tint was reflected in the water immediately below the ridge, and farther out there were lakelets of pale green, as if the islands, too, had the power to mirror themselves when the sea itself was glass.
Santiago, Davidov, Carolina Xime'no, Delfina Ri-vera, Concha and Rezanov, had climbed to the ridge.
The other young people had given out halfway up the steep and tangled ascent and returned to the beach. Dona Ignacia immediately after dinner had frankly asked her host for the hospitality of his stateroom. She and her little ones must have their siesta, and the good lady was convinced that so high and mighty a personage as the Russian Cham-berlain was all the chaperon the proprieties de-manded.
Four of the party strayed along the crest in search of the first wild pansies. Rezanov and Concha looked under the sloping roof of brittle leaves into dim falling vistas, arches, arbors, caverns, a forest in miniature with natural terraces breaking the pre-cipitous wall of the island.
"I should like to live here," said Concha defi-nitely.
"It would make a fine estate for summer life--or for a honeymoon." He smiled down upon his com-panion, who stood very tall and straight and proud beside him. "If you conclude to marry your little Bostonian no doubt he will buy it for you," he said.
If he had hoped to see a look of blank dismay after his hours of devotion he was disappointed.
She made a little face.
"I do not think I could stand a desert island with the good Weeliam. For that I should prefer one of my own sort--Ignacio, or Fernando. Better still, I could come here and be a hermit."
"A hermit?"
"In some ways that would suit me very well. All human beings become tiresome, I find. I shall have a little hut just below the crest where I can look from my window right into the woods that are so quiet and green and beautiful. That is a thought that has always fascinated me. And when I walk on the crest I can see all the beauty of mountain and bay. What more could I want? What more have you in your world when you know it too well, senor?"
"Nothing; but you might tire, too, of this."
"What of it? It would be the gentle sad ennui of peace, not of disillusion, senor. How I wish you would tell me all you know of life!"
"God forbid. And do not remind me of ennui and disillusions. I have forgotten both in California.
Perhaps, after all, I shall not return to St. Peters-burg. There is a vast empire here--"
"But it is not yours or Russia's to rule, Excel-lency," she interrupted him softly.
He did not color nor start, but met her eyes with his deep amused glance. "I, too, can dream, seno-rita. Of a great and wonderful kingdom--that never will exist, perhaps. I have always been called a dreamer, but the habit has grown since I came to this lovely unreal land of yours."
"Have you the intention to take it from us, Ex-cellency?" she asked quietly.
"Would you betray me if you thought I had?"
Her eyes responded for a moment to the mag-netism of his, and then she drew herself up.
"No, senor, I could not betray a man who had been our guest, and Spain needs no assistance from a weak girl to hold her own against Russia."
"Well said! I kiss your hands, as they say in Vienna. But we must sail again. I told them to be ready at three o'clock."
Dalliance with the most alluring girl he had ever known was all very well, but the day's work was not yet done. When they returned to the ship he deliberately engaged all the Spaniards in a game of cards, ordered cigarettes and a bowl of punch for their refreshment, and then the Juno steered south.
