“It was a wearisome task for me to climb the donjon stairs, but I knew father would not be there to watch Byron set out, and I felt that one of the family should give him God-speed; so alone, and frightened almost out of my wits, I climbed those dark steps to the battlements, and gazed after Byron till he was a mere speck on the horizon down toward Paris.  I pray God there may be a great plenty of trouble grow out of the crossing of this ‘t’.  Father is always saying that women were put on earth to make trouble, so I’ll do what little I can to make true His Lordship’s words.”  She threw back her head, laughing softly.  “Is it not glorious, Sir Karl?”

“Indeed, Princess—­” I began, but she clapped her hand over my mouth and I continued, “Indeed, Yolanda, the plan is so adroit and so effective that it fills me with admiration and awe.”

“I like the name Yolanda,” said she, looking toward Max, who was sitting with Twonette on one of the benches by the chimney.

“And I, too, like it,” I responded.  “I cannot think of you as the greatest and richest princess in Europe.”

“Ah, I wish I, too, could forget it, but I can’t,” she answered with a sigh, glancing from under her preposterously long lashes toward Max and Twonette.

“How came you to take the name Yolanda?” I asked.

“Grandfather wished to give me the name in baptism,” she answered, “but Mary fell to my lot.  I like the present arrangement.  Mary is the name of the princess—­the unhappy, faulty princess.  Yolanda is my name.  Almost every happy hour I have ever spent has been as Yolanda.  You cannot know the wide difference between me and the Princess Mary.  It is, Sir Karl, as if we were two persons.”

She spoke very earnestly, and I could see that there was no mirth in her heart when she thought of herself as the Princess Mary; she was not jesting.

“I don’t know the princess,” I said laughingly, “but I know Yolanda.”

“Yes; I’ll tell you a great secret, Sir Karl.  The Princess Mary is not at all an agreeable person.  She is morose, revengeful, haughty, cold—­” here her voice dropped to a whisper, “and, Sir Karl, she lies—­she lies.  While Yolanda—­well, Yolanda at least is not cold, and I—­I think she is a very delightful person.  Don’t you?”

There was a troubled, eager expression in her eyes that told plainly she was in earnest.  To Yolanda the princess was another person.

“Yolanda is very sure of me,” I answered.

“Ah, that she is,” answered the girl.  You see, this was a real case of billing and cooing between December and May.

A short silence followed, during which Yolanda glanced furtively toward Max and Twonette.

“You spoke of your grandfather,” said I, “and that reminds me that you promised to tell me the story of the staircase in the wall.”

“So I did,” answered Yolanda, haltingly.  Her attention was at the other end of the room.