A RACE WITH THE DUKE
Neither road clung to the river in all its windings, but at too frequent
intervals both touched the stream at the same points. At places the
roads hugged the Somme, separated only by its width--perhaps two hundred
yards. These would be our danger points. I did not know them, and
Yolanda's knowledge of the road was imperfect.
Soon after leaving Cinq Voies, the road on the right bank--the one taken
by the duke--gained a mile over the road on the left by cutting across a
great bend in the river around which we had to travel. We therefore lost
the duke's cavalcade at the outset.
Hoping to pass the duke before the roads came again within sight of each
other, we urged our horses to full speed. But the duke also was
travelling rapidly, as we learned when we reached the first point of
contact. Should the duke's men see us they would certainly hail. Four
men in armor and two ladies, travelling the road to Peronne would not be
allowed to pass unchallenged. Fortunately, just before the danger point,
a clump of trees and underbushes grew between our road and the river.
Max, who was riding a hundred yards in advance, suddenly stopped and
held up his hand warningly. We halted immediately, and Max turned back
to us, guiding his horse to the roadside to avoid raising a dust-cloud.
We listened in silence, and I beckoned the squires to our sides. The men
of our little party all dismounted and stood by their horses' heads,
ready to strike the noses of the animals should they offer to salute the
horses across the river with a neigh. Had not our danger been so great
it would have been amusing to see each man, with uplifted hand, watching
the eyes of his horse as intently as though they were the eyes of his
lady-love. Yolanda laughed despite the danger, but covered her mouth
with her hand when I frowned warningly.
Presently we heard the tramping of horses and the voices of men across
the river, and soon the duke approached at a canter. I could not help
speculating on the consequences should His Grace know that Yolanda was
watching him--if Yolanda were his daughter.
That "if" would surely be the death of me.
When the duke had passed a little way down the road, I peered through
the bushes and saw the dust-cloud ahead of us.
We could not venture from our hiding-place till the duke was out of
sight, and by the delay we lost a good half-league in our race. I asked
Yolanda if she knew how far it was to the next point of contact, She did
not know, but I learned from a peasant that the river made a great bend,
and that our road gained nearly a league over the other before each
again touched the river. This was our great chance.
We put our horses to their best; and when we again reached the river,
Max, who was riding in advance, announced that the other cavalcade was
not in sight. If it had passed, our race was lost; if it had not, we
felt that we could easily ride into Peronne ahead of Duke Charles. At
that point the roads followed the river within a stone's throw of each
other for a great distance. If the duke had not reached this point, our
need for haste was greater than ever before. We must be beyond the open
stretch before the other cavalcade should come up to it.
Our poor blown horses were loath to run, but we urged them to it. When
we had covered half this open road, we took to the sod at the roadside
to avoid raising a telltale cloud of dust. After a hard gallop we
reached a forest where the road again left the river. Here we halted to
breathe our horses and to watch the road on the right bank. After ten
minutes we became uneasy and began to fear that the duke's cavalcade had
passed us, but Max insisted that our fears were groundless.
"Their dust could not have settled so quickly," he declared. "We should
see at least traces of it. They cannot have passed."
"One cannot help believing," said Yolanda, musingly, "that there are men
who command the elements. One would almost say they make the rain to
fall or to cease, the wind to rise or to drop, to suit their purposes,
and the dust to lie quietly beneath their horses' feet. I pray God we
may soon know, else I shall surely die of suspense."
"There are also some persons, Fräulein, whom God answers quickly," said
Max, looking under his hand down the road. "Do you see yonder
dust-cloud? It is a good two miles back of us."
"It may not be the duke," said Yolanda, doubtingly.
"Let us trust it is," said Max, "and lose no more time here."
We watered our horses at a small brook and entered the forest, feeling
that our race was won. The exultation of victory was upon Yolanda, and
her buoyant spirits mounted to the skies. All fear and gloom had left
her. She laughed and sang, and the sunshine of her humor filled all our
hearts with delight. Since leaving Metz we had travelled so rapidly, and
a cloud of uncertainty and fear was so constantly over us, that Yolanda
had spoken little to Max or to any one; but now that victory was in her
grasp, she intended to waste not one moment more in troubled thoughts
and painful fears.
"Ride beside me, Sir Max," she cried, beckoning him as if she were a
great princess and he her page. Max spurred his horse to her side, and
after a moment Twonette fell back with me. I overheard all that was said
between Max and Yolanda, and though I do not pretend to quote
accurately, I will give you the substance of their conversation.
"I cannot help laughing," she said, suiting the action to the word,
"over our tragic parting at Metz. We were separated a whole day!"
"But we supposed it was to be for a very long time," said Max. "We--that
is, I--feared I should never see you again. As it was, the day seemed
long to me, Fräulein."
The girl laughed joyously. She had, you remember, offered Max to the
Virgin at Strasburg. Perhaps part of her joy was because the Queen of
Heaven had returned him to her.
"I should like to try a separation for many days," she said.
"You will soon have the opportunity," returned Max, with wounded vanity.
She paid no heed to his remark, and continued:--
"The second day would not seem so long to you. The third would be still
shorter, and at the end of a fortnight--nay, at the end of a week--you
would wonder how you were ever brought to fix your eyes on a poor
burgher girl, even for a passing moment--you, a great lord. You see, I
have no vast estates to hold you constant, such as those possessed by
the forward lady who sent you the letter and the ring. Do you know, Sir
Max, if I were very fond of you,--if I were your sweetheart,--I should
be jealous of this brazen lady, very jealous."
There was a glint in her eyes that might have caused one to believe the
jealousy already existed.
"Your raillery ill becomes you," said Max, half sullenly. "If I forget
my rank and hold it of small account for your sake, you should not make
a jest of it."
You see, he had not entirely washed out of himself the ceremonious
starch of Hapsburg.
She glanced quickly toward him and answered poutingly:--
"If you don't like my jesting, Sir Max, you may leave me to ride alone."
"You asked me to ride with you," returned Max, "but if you have changed
your mind and insist on being ill-tempered, I will--"
She reached out her hand, and, grasping his bridle-reins, threw them
over the pommel of her saddle.
"Now let me see what you will do, my great Lord Somebody," she cried
defiantly. "You shall not only ride beside me, but you shall also
listen good-humoredly to my jests when I am pleased to make them, and
bear with my ill-humor when I am pleased to be ill-humored."
Max left the bridle-reins in her hand, but did not smile. She was not to
be driven from her mood.
"You are such a serious person, Sir Max, that you must, at times, feel
yourself a great weight--almost burdensome--to carry about." She
laughed, though his resentment had piqued her, and there was a dash of
anger in her words. "Ponderous persons are often ridiculous and are apt
to tire themselves with their own weight--no, Sir Max, you can't get
away. I have your reins."
"I can dismount," returned Max, "and leave you my horse to lead."
He turned to leave his saddle, but she caught his arm, rode close to his
side, and, slipping her hand down his sleeve, clasped his hand--if a
hand so small as hers can be said to clasp one so large as his.
A beautiful woman is born with a latent consciousness of her power over
the subjugated sex. Max found in the soft touch of the girl's hand a
wonderful antidote to her sharp words. She continued to hold his hand as
compensation while she said, laughing nervously:--
"Sir Max, you are still young. A friend would advise you: Never lose a
chance to laugh, even though it be at your own expense. There will
always be opportunity to grieve and be gloomy. I tell you frankly, Sir
Max, I almost wept when I bade you good-by at Metz. Now, I am telling
you my state secret and am giving you more than you have asked."
Max joyfully interrupted her:--
"I can forgive you all your raillery, Fräulein, for that admission."
"Yes, I confess it is a very important admission," she said, in
half-comic seriousness, "but you see, I really did weep when I parted
from my great mastiff, Caesar, at Peronne."
The saucy turn was made so quickly that its humor took Max unawares, and
he laughed.
"There, there! Sir Max, there is hope for you," she cried exultantly.
Then she continued, stealing a side glance at him, "I loved Caesar very,
very much."
There was a satisfying implication in her laughing words, owing to the
fact that she had almost wept at Metz. Max was eager to take advantage
of the opportunity her words gave him, for his caution was rapidly
oozing away; but he had placed a seal on his lips, and they were
shut--at least, for the time. His silence needed no explanation to
Yolanda, and she continued laughingly:--
"Yes, I almost wept. Perhaps I did weep. I will not say truly that I did
not, Sir Max, but within an hour I was laughing at my foolish self and
feared that you, too, would be laughing at me. I wondered if in all the
world there was another burgher maiden so great a fool as to lift her
eyes to a mighty lord, or to think that he could lower his eyes to her
with true intent."
At that point in the conversation I felt that the seal upon Max's lips
would not stand another attack. It was sure to melt; so I rode to
Yolanda's side and interrupted the interesting colloquy.
Max supposed the girl to be of the burgher class, and if by any chance
she were Mary of Burgundy, he might ruin his future, should he become
too insistent upon his rank in explaining the reasons why he could not
follow the path of his inclinations. He might make himself ridiculous;
and that mistake will ruin a man with any woman, especially if she be
young and much inclined to laugh.
During the foregoing conversation we had been travelling at a six-mile
canter. The day was warm, and I suggested breathing the horses in the
shade of the forest.
"I believe we are approaching the river," I said, "and we should rest
the horses before taking a dash over the open road."
Yolanda assented--in a manner she seemed to have taken command of the
party--and we halted under the trees. Max rode forward to a point from
which he could view the other road, and waved his hand to let us know
that the duke was not in sight. We immediately put spurs to our horses
and covered the stretch of open road by the river in a short, brisk
gallop. On leaving the road again we saw no indication of the duke's
cavalcade. Evidently the race was ours by an easy canter. From that
point to within two miles of Peronne, Yolanda's song was as joyous as
that of a wooing bird. The sun beat down upon us, and blinding clouds of
dust rose from every plunge of our horses' hoofs; but Yolanda's song
transformed our hot, wearisome journey into a triumphant march.
Happiness seemed to radiate from her and to furnish joy for all.
For a stretch of two miles up river from Peronne the roads approached
each other, but, owing to an intervening marsh, they were fully half a
mile apart. We, or at least Yolanda, had apparently forgotten the duke
when, near the hour of eight in the morning, we approached the marsh;
but when we entered the open country we saw, to our consternation, the
duke's cavalcade within one mile of Peronne. Where they had passed us we
did not know, nor did we stop to consider. They were five minutes ahead,
and if we could not enter Peronne in advance of them, it were no worse
had they been a day before us.
Yolanda cast one frightened glance toward the duke's party, and struck
her horse a blow with her whip that sent it bounding forward at a
furious gallop. We reached the river and were crossing as the duke
entered Cambrai Gate--the north entrance to the city. We would enter by
the gate on the south known as the Somme Gate; Cambrai Gate was nearer
the castle.
The duke, I supposed, would go directly to the castle; where Yolanda
would go I could not guess. From outside the Somme Gate we saw the duke
enter Cambrai, but after we had passed under the arch we could not see
him for a time because of intervening houses. The huge, grim pile of
stone known as Peronne Castle loomed ominously on the opposite side of
the small town. Yolanda veiled herself before passing under the gate and
hastened, though without conspicuous speed, toward the castle.
I afterward learned that there was but one entrance to the castle from
the town. It was known as the Postern, though it had a portcullis and a
drawbridge spanning the moat. To the Postern the duke took his way, as
we could see at intervals by looking down cross streets. Yolanda did not
follow him. She held her course down a narrow street flanked by
overhanging eaves. Looking down this street, I could see that it
terminated abruptly at the castle wall, which rose dark and unbroken
sixty feet above the ground.
At the end of this street a stone footbridge spanned the moat, leading
to a strip of ground perhaps one hundred yards broad and two hundred
long that lay between the moat and the castle wall. At either end of
this strip the moat again turned to the castle. The Cologne River joined
the moat at the north end of this tract of ground and flowed on by the
castle wall to the Somme. In a grove of trees stood a large two-story
house of time-darkened stone, built against the castle wall. One could
not leave the strip of ground save by the stone footbridge, unless by
swimming the moat or scaling the walls.
When we reached the footbridge, Yolanda and Twonette, without a word of
farewell, urged their horses across, and, springing from their saddles,
hurriedly entered the house. Max and I turned our horses' heads, and, as
we were leaving the footbridge, saw the duke's cavalcade enter the
Postern, which was perhaps three hundred yards back and north of the
strip on which stood the House under the Wall.
To reach the Postern in the castle wall from the footbridge one must go
well up into the town and cross the great bridge that spans the Cologne;
then back along the north bank of the river by the street that leads to
the Postern. From the House under the Wall to the Postern, by way of the
Cologne bridge, is a half-hour's walk, though in a direct line, as the
crow flies, it may be less than three hundred yards. Neither Max nor I
knew whether our journey had been a success or a failure.
We rode leisurely back to the centre of the town, and asked a carter to
direct us to Marcus Grote's inn, The Mitre. We soon found it, and gave
mine host the letter that we bore from Castleman. Although the hour of
nine in the morning had not yet struck, Max and I eagerly sought our
beds, and did not rise till late in the afternoon. The next morning we
dismissed our squires, fearing they might talk. We paid the men, gave
them each a horse, and saw them well on their road back to Switzerland.
They were Swiss lads, and could not take themselves out of Burgundy fast
enough to keep pace with their desires.
Notwithstanding Castleman's admonition, Max determined to remain in
Peronne; not for the sake of Mary the princess, but for the smile of
Yolanda the burgher girl. I well knew that opposition would avail
nothing, and was quite willing to be led by the unseen hand of fate.
The evening of the second day after our arrival I walked out at dusk and
by accident met my friend, the Sieur d'Hymbercourt. He it was to whom my
letters concerning Max had been written, and who had been responsible
for the offer of Mary's hand. He recognized me before I could avoid him,
so I offered my hand and he gave me kindly welcome.
"By what good fortune are you here, Sir Karl?" he asked.
"I cannot tell," I answered, "whether it be good or evil fortune that
brings me. I deem it right to tell you that I am here with my young
pupil, the Count of Hapsburg."
Hymbercourt whistled his astonishment.
"We are out to see a little of the world, and I need not tell you how
important it is that we remain unknown while in Burgundy. I bear my own
name; the young count has assumed the name of his mother's family and
wishes to be known as Sir Maximilian du Guelph."
"I shall not mention your presence even to my wife," he replied. "I
advise you not to remain in Burgundy. The duke takes it for granted that
Styria will aid the Swiss, or at least will sympathize with them in this
brewing war, and I should fear for your safety were he to discover you."
"I understand the duke recently arrived in Peronne?" I asked.
"Yes," answered Hymbercourt, "we all came yesterday morning."
"How is the fair princess? Did she come with you?" I asked, fearing to
hear his reply.
"She is well, and more beautiful than ever before," he answered. "She
did not come with us from Ghent; she has been here at the castle with
her stepmother, the Duchess Margaret. They have lived here during the
last two or three years. The princess met her father just inside the
Postern, lovely and fresh as a dew-dipped rose."
"She met her father just inside the Postern?" I asked, slowly dropping
my words in astonishment. "She was in the castle yard when her father
entered,--and at the Postern?"
"Yes, she took his hand and sprang to a seat behind him," answered
Hymbercourt.
"She met him inside the Postern, say you?" I repeated musingly.
"What is there amazing about so small an act?" asked Hymbercourt. "Is it
not natural that she should greet her father whom she has not seen for
a year?"
"Indeed, yes," I replied stumblingly, "but the weather is very hot,
and--and I was thinking how much I should have enjoyed witnessing the
meeting. She doubtless was dressed in gala attire for so rare an
occasion?" I asked, wishing to talk upon the subject that touched me so
nearly. Yolanda was in short skirts, stained and travel-worn, when
she left us.
"Indeed she was," answered Hymbercourt. "I can easily describe her
dress. She loves woman's finery, and I must confess that I too love it.
She wore a hawking costume; a cap of crimson--I think it was
velvet--with little knots on it and gems scattered here and there. A
heron's plume clasped with a diamond brooch adorned the cap. Her hair
hung over her shoulders. It is very dark and falls in a great bush of
fluffy curls. When her headgear is off, her hair looks like a black
corona. She is wonderfully beautiful, wonderfully beautiful. Her gown
was of red stuff. Perhaps it was of velvet like the cap. It was hitched
up with a cord and girdle, with tassels of gold lace and--and--Sir Karl,
you are not listening."
"I am listening," I replied. "I am greatly interested. Her gown--she
wore a gown--she wore a gown--"
"Yes, of course she wore a gown," laughingly retorted Hymbercourt. "Your
lagging attention is what I deserve, Sir Karl, for trying in my lame
fashion to describe a woman's gear to a man who is half priest, half
warrior. I do not wonder that you did not follow me."
I had heard him, but there was another question dinning in my ears so
loudly that it drowned all other sounds--"Who is Yolanda?"
Yolanda was entering the door of the House under the Wall less than five
minutes before I saw the duke pass through the Postern. Marcus Grote had
told me there were but two openings to the castle, the Postern and the
great gate on the other side of the castle by the donjon keep. To reach
the great gate one must pass out by Cambrai or the Somme Gate and go
around the city walls--an hour's journey.
With an air of carelessness I asked Hymbercourt concerning the various
entrances to the castle. He confirmed what Grote had said. Considering
all the facts, I was forced to this conclusion: If the Princess Mary had
met the duke at the Postern, Yolanda was not the Princess Mary.
The next day I reconnoitred the premises, and again reached the
conclusion that Yolanda could not have met the duke inside the Postern
unless she were a witch with wings that could fly thither over the
castle walls; ergo, she was not the princess. With equal certainty she
was not a burgher girl.
In seeking an identity that would fit her I groped among many absurd
propositions. Yolanda might be the duke's ward, or she might be his
daughter, though not bearing his name. My brain was in a whirl. If she
were the princess, I wished to remain in Peronne to pursue the small
advantage Max had assuredly gained in winning her favor. The French
marriage might miscarry. But if she were not the princess, I could not
get my Prince Max away from her dangerous neighborhood too quickly. I
could not, of course, say to Max, "You shall remain in Peronne," or "You
shall leave Peronne at once;" but my influence over him was great, and
he trusted my fidelity, my love, and my ability to advise him rightly. I
had always given my advice carefully, but, above all, I had given him
the only pleasurable moments he had ever known. That, by the way, may
have been the greatest good I could have offered him.
When Max was a child, the pleasure of his amusements was smothered by
officialism. My old Lord Aurbach, though gouty and stiff of joint, was
eager to "run" his balls or his arrows, and old Sir Giles Butch could be
caught so easily at tag or blind man's buff that there was no sport for
Max in doing it. Everything the boy did was done by the heir of Styria,
except on rare occasions when he and I stole away from the castle. Then
we were boys together, and then it was I earned his love and confidence.
At such times we used to leave the Hapsburg ancestry to care for itself
and dumped Hapsburg dignity into the moat. But the crowning good I had
brought to him was this journey into the world. The boy loathed the
clinging dignities that made of him, at home, a royal automaton, tricked
out in tarnished gold lace, faded velvets, and pompous airs. He often
spoke of the pleasures I had given him. One evening at Grote's inn I
answered:--
"Nonsense, Max, nonsense," though I was so pleased with his gratitude I
could have wept.
"It is not nonsense. You have saved me from becoming a mummy. I see it
all, Karl, and shudder to think of the life that might have been mine. I
take no pleasure in seeing gouty old dependents bowing, kneeling, and
smirking before me. Of course, these things are my prerogative, and a
man born to them may not forego what is due to his birth even though it
irks him. But such an existence--I will not call it living--saps the
juice of life. Even dear old mother is compelled to suppress her love
for me. Often she has pressed me to her breast only to thrust me away at
the approach of footsteps. By the way, Karl," continued Max, while
preparing for bed, "Yolanda one day at Basel jestingly called me
'Little Max.'"
"The devil she did," I exclaimed, unable to restrain my words.
"Yes," answered Max, "and when in surprise I told her that it was my
mother's love-name for me, she laughed saucily, 'Yes, I know it is.'"
"The dev-- Max, you can't mean what you say?" I cried, in an ecstasy of
delight over the news he was telling me.
"Indeed I do," he returned. "I told her I loved the name as a sweet
reminder of my mother."
"What did she say?" I asked.
"She seemed pleased and flashed her eyes on me--you know the way she
has--and said: 'I, too, like the name. It fits you so well--by
contraries.' Where could she have learned it, and how could she have
known it was my mother's love-name for me?"
"I cannot tell," I answered.
So! here was a small fact suddenly grown big, since, despite all
evidence to the contrary, it brought me back to my old belief that this
fair, laughing Yolanda was none other than the great Princess of
Burgundy. I was sure that she had gained all her information concerning
Max from my letters to Hymbercourt.
It racks a man's brain to play shuttlecock with it in that fashion.
While I lay in bed trying to sleep, I thought of the meeting between the
duke and the princess at the Postern, and back again flew my mind to the
conviction that Yolanda was not, and could not possibly be, the Princess
Mary. For days I had been able to think on no other subject. One moment
she was Yolanda; the next she was the princess; and the next I did not
know who she was. Surely the riddle would drive me mad. The fate of
nations--but, infinitely more important to me, the fate of Max--depended
upon its solution.
Castleman had told us to remain at the inn until his return, and had
exacted from Max, as you will remember, a promise not to visit the House
under the Wall, which we had learned was the home of our burgher friend.
We therefore spent our days and evenings in Grote's garden near the
banks of the river Cologne.
One afternoon, while we were sitting at a table sipping wine under the
shade of a tree near the river bank, Max said:--
"I have enjoyed every day of our journey, Karl. I have learned the great
lesson of life, and am now ready to go back to Styria and take up my
burden. We must see our friends and say farewell to them. Then--"
"You forget the object of our journey to Burgundy," I answered.
"No, I have not forgotten it," he replied. "I had abandoned it even
before I heard of the impending French marriage."
"Not with my consent, Max," I answered almost fiercely. "The princess is
not yet married, and no one can foresee the outcome of these present
complications into which the duke is plunging. We could not have reached
Burgundy at a more auspicious time. God's hand seems to have been in our
venture. If evil befall the duke, there will be an open gate for you,
Max,--a gate opened by fate."
I could not, by my utmost effort, force myself entirely away from the
belief that Yolanda was the princess, and I was near to telling Max of
my suspicions; but doubt came before my words, and I remained silent.
Before many days I was glad of my caution.
"I knew," said Max, "that I would pain you, Karl, by this determination
to return to Styria without so much as an effort to do--to do what we--
what you wished; but it must be as I say. I must leave Burgundy and go
back to my strait-jacket. I have lived my life, Karl, I have had my
portion of sweet joy and sweeter pain. The pain will give me joy as long
as I live. Now for my duty to my father, my house, and my ancestors."
"But your duty to all these lies here in Peronne," I answered, almost
stifled by the stupendous import of the moment.
"I suppose you are right," sighed Max, speaking gently, though with
decision. "But that duty I'll shirk, and try to make amends in other
ways. I shall never marry. That, Karl, you may depend upon. Styria may
go at my death to Albert of Austria, or to his issue."
"No, no! Max," I cried. He ignored my interruption.
"Along with the countless duties that fall to the lot of a prince are a
few that one owes to himself as a man. There are some sacrifices a man
has no right to inflict upon himself, even for the sake of his family,
his ancestors, or his state." He paused for the space of a minute, and,
dropping his words slowly, continued in a low voice vibrant with
emotion: "There is but one woman, Karl, whom I may marry with God's
pleasure. Her, I may not even think upon; she is as far from me as if
she were dead. I must sacrifice her for the sake of the obligations and
conditions into which I was born; but--" here he hesitated, rose slowly
to his feet, and lifted his hands above his head, "but I swear before
the good God, who, in His wisdom, inflicted the curse of my birth upon
me, that I will marry no other woman than this, let the result be
what it may."
He sank back into the chair and fell forward on the table, burying his
face in his arms. His heart for the moment was stronger than his
resolution.
"That question is settled," thought I. No power save that of the Pope
could absolve the boy from his oath, and I knew that the power of ten
score of popes could not move him from its complete fulfilment. The oath
of Maximilian of Hapsburg, whose heart had never coined a lie, was as
everlasting as the rocks of his native land and, like Styria's mountain
peaks, pierced the dome of heaven.
If Yolanda were not the princess, our journeying to Burgundy had been in
vain, and our sojourn in Peronne was useless and perilous. It could not
be brought to a close too quickly. But (the question mark seems at times
to be the greatest part of life) if Yolanda were Mary of Burgundy, Max
had, beyond doubt, already won the lady's favor, unless she were a
wanton snare for every man's feet. That hypothesis I did not entertain
for a moment. I knew little of womankind, but my limited knowledge told
me that Yolanda was true. Her heart was full of laughter,--a rare, rich
heritage,--and she was little inclined to look on the serious side of
life if she could avoid it; but beneath all there was a real Yolanda,
with a great, tender heart and a shrewd, helpful brain. She was somewhat
of a coquette, but coquetry salts a woman and gives her relish. It had
been a grievous waste on the part of Providence to give to any girl such
eyes as Yolanda's and to withhold from her a modicum of coquetry with
which to use them. Taken all in all, Yolanda, whoever she was, would
grace any station in life. But if she were not the princess, I would be
willing to give my life--nay, more, I would almost be willing to take
hers--rather than see her marry Maximilian of Hapsburg. Happiness could
not come from such a union.
Should Max marry a burgher girl, his father and mother would never look
upon his face again. It would alienate his subjects, humble his house,
and bring him to the level of the meanest noble on the Danube. To all
these dire consequences Max was quite as wide awake as I. He had no
intention of bringing them upon his house, though for himself he would
have welcomed them. So I felt little uneasiness; but when a great love
lays hold upon a great heart, no man may know the outcome.