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.
Pages:
349
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