tly, 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
us alone.

Nancy stood in the middle of the room looking about her. "I like it,"
she said, with a queer shake in her voice. "Don't you, Elizabeth?"

I liked it so much that I felt it wise to hide my pleasure in a pretense
of indifference. "Well, it is original to say the least."

But it was more than original, it was poetic. It was--Melisande in the
wood--one of Sinding's haunting melodies, an old Saga caught and fixed
in color and carving.

In this glowing room Nancy in her white and gray was a cold and
incongruous figure, and when at last she donned her dull cap, and the
dull cloak that she wore over her swimming costume, she seemed a ghostly
shadow of the bright bride whom that other Olaf had brought--a thousand
years before--to his strange old ship.

I realize that what comes hereafter in this record must seem to the
unimaginative overdrawn. Even now, as I look back upon it, it has a
dream quality, as if it might never have happened, or as if, as Nancy
had said, it was part of a play, which would be over when the curtain
was rung down and the actors had returned to the commonplace.

But the actors in this drama have never returned to the commonplace. Or
have they? Shall I ever know? I hope I may never know, if Nancy and Olaf
have lost the glamour of their dreams.

Well, we found Olaf on deck waiting for us. In a sea-blue tunic, with
strong white arms, and the dazzling fairness of his strong neck