"They would laugh at you
and say that you were merely another fool who had lost his head over a
woman. They would say that I duped you--"
"No!" he cried vehemently. "Your people know better than you think.
You are disheartened, discouraged. Things will look brighter to-
morrow. Good heavens, think how much worse it might have been. That--
that infernal brute was going to force you into a vile, unholy
marriage. He--By the way," he broke off abruptly, "I have been
thinking a lot about what you told me. He couldn't have married you
without your consent. Such a marriage would never hold in a court of--
"
"You are wrong," she said quietly. "He could have married me without
my consent, and it would have held,--not in one of your law courts, I
dare say, but in the court to which he and I belong by laws that were
made centuries before America was discovered. A prince of the royal
house may wed whom and when he chooses, provided he does not look too
far beneath his station. He may not wed a commoner. The state would
not recognise such a union. My consent was not necessary."
"But you are in my country now, not in yours," he argued. "Our laws
would have protected you."
"You do not understand.
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