nicer than three."

As it turned put, however, Anthony could not go. He was called back to
Boston on business. That was where Fate again stepped in. It was, I am
sure, those three days of Anthony's absence which turned the scale of
Nancy's destiny. If he had been with us that first morning on the boat
Olaf would not have dared....

Nancy wore her white linen and her gray-velvet coat, and a hat with a
gull's wing. She carried her bathing suit. "He intends, evidently, to
entertain us in his own way."

Olaf's yacht was modern, but there was a hint of the barbaric in its
furnishings. The cabin into which we were shown and in which Nancy was
to change was in strangely carved wood, and there was a wolfskin on the
floor in front of the low bed. The coverlet was of a fine-woven red-silk
cloth, weighed down by a border of gold and silver threads. On the wall
hung a square of tapestry which showed a strange old ship with sails of
blue and red and green, and with golden dragon-heads at stem and stern.

Nancy, crossing the threshold, said to Olaf, who had opened the door for
us, "It is like coming into another world; as if you had set the stage,
run up the curtain, and the play had begun."

"You like it? It was a fancy of mine to copy a description I found in
an old book. King Olaf, the Thick-set, furnished a room like this for
his bride."

Olaf, the Thick-set! The phrase fitted perfectly this strong, stocky,
blue-eyed man, who smiled radiantly upon us as he shut the door and left