Dad. We quarreled bitterly. Agatha was there with him. I
can hardly write what followed. By some God-forsaken twist of Fate, a
jealous, sullen-eyed young Indian who had loved Nanca and had been
spurned by her father, followed us relentlessly from the Glades to St.
Augustine. He told Dad that Nanca had not been married to the
artist--that she was a mother and not a wife--and Dad believed it. I
told him patiently enough that there is no ceremony among the
Seminoles--that the man goes forth to the home of the girl at the
setting of the sun, and that he is then as legally her husband as if
all the courts in Christendom had tied the knot. Dad can not see it.
I shall be in New York in two weeks. Nanca and I are going to Spain.
I can not forget Dad's white, horror-struck face nor what he said. He
is bigoted and unjust. God help me, I hope that I may never set eyes
upon him again!

* * * * * *

We have been very happy here in Spain. I have run across a wonderful
old room in a Spanish castle. Ceiling, doors, fireplace, paintings,
table, chairs and lanterns, I am transplanting. What a setting for
Nanca!

We are sailing for home. Nanca is not so well as I could hope. She
grieves, I think, for the little girl in Florida. There are times when
I am bitterly jealous of those two other men.

There was a lapse of weeks in the letters. Then came a long one from
New York.

Grant came that night just after you had gone. He has been with me a
week. His notions are more erratic than ever. For instance, last
night, while we were smoking, I told him the story of Prince Theodomir.
He was greatly interested.

"What a chance!" said he softly. "What a chance, Norman, for wild
commotion in your ridiculous little court. I've been there. It's a
kingdom of crazy patriots who grant freedom of marital choice to their
princes to freshen and strengthen the royal blood; and they boast an
ancient line of queens wiser than Catherine of Russia. A hidden paper
purporting to be a deathbed statement of Prince Theodomir's--this
little daughter of Nanca and the artist--and, Lord! what complications
we could have immediately. How easily she might have been the child of
Theodomir and a princess!"

And sitting there by the table, Ann, he drew up an ingenious document
couched in the stilted English of a foreigner. Like most of Grant's
notions, it was infernally clever. It suggested that my marriage to