I was right in my surmise.  Yolanda’s sweet face, radiant with smiles and soft with dimples, was pressed against the window-pane watching for us when we crossed the moat bridge at Castleman’s door.

“To see her face again is like coming back to heaven; isn’t it, Karl?” said Max.

Yolanda ran to the door and opened it.

“I am glad you did not stay with her,” she said, giving a hand to Max and to me, and walking into the room between us.  She was like a child holding our hands.

I had seen the world and its people in all its phases, and I prided myself on my shrewdness, but without my knowledge of the stairway in the wall, I would have sworn that Yolanda had played a trick on me by leading me to believe that she was the Princess Mary.  Even with full knowledge of all the facts, I found myself doubting.  It is small cause for wonder, therefore, that Max was deceived.

“Uncle is at the shop,” said Yolanda.  “Tante is at a neighbor’s, and Twonette, of course, is asleep.  We three will sit here on this bench with no one to disturb us, and I shall have you both all to myself.  No!  There!  I’ll sit between you.  Now, this is delightful.”

She sat between us, crossed her knees—­an unpardonable crime, Frau Kate would have thought—­and giving a hand to Max and to me, said contentedly:—­

“Now, tell me all about it.”

I was actually on the point of beginning a narrative of our adventures, just as if she did not already know them,—­so great was the spell she had thrown over me,—­when Max spoke:—­

“We had a poor dinner, but a kind host, therefore a fine feast.  The duke has asked us to go to Switzerland with him.  Judging by the enormous sum he offers for our poor services, he must believe that he will need no other help to conquer the Swiss.”

“Yes—­yes, that is interesting,” said Yolanda, hastily, “but the princess—­tell me of her.”

“She is a very beautiful princess,” answered Max.

“Yes—­I suppose she is,” answered Yolanda.  “I have it dinned into my ears till I ought to believe it; but tell me of her manner, her conversation, her temper.  What of them?”

“She is a most beautiful princess,” answered Max, evidently intending to utter no word against Her Highness, though as a matter of fact he did not like her at all.  “I am sure she deserves all the good that fame speaks of her.”

Yolanda flung our hands from her, sprang to her feet, and faced us angrily.

“That’s the way with all men.  A rich princess, even though she be a cold devil, is beautiful and good and gentle and wise and true and quick of wit.  Men care not what she is if her house be great and rich and powerful.  If her domains are fat and broad, she deserves ’all the good that fame speaks of her.’  She can win no man for herself.  She cannot touch a man’s heart; she can only satisfy his greed.  You went to the castle, Sir Max, to see this princess.  You want Burgundy.  That is why you are in Peronne!”