Max and I were sitting in the long room (it was on the ground floor and extended across the entire front of the house) with Castleman when Frau Kate entered followed by Yolanda and Twonette.  The frau courtesied, and gave us welcome.  Twonette courtesied and stepped to her father’s side.  Yolanda gave Max her hand and lifted it to be kissed.  The girl laughed joyously, and, giving him her other hand, stood looking up into his face.  Her laughter soon became nervous, and that change in a womanly woman is apt to be the forerunner of tears.  They soon came to moisten Yolanda’s eyes, but she kept herself well in hand and said:—­

“It has been a very long time, Sir Max, since last I saw you.”

“A hard, cruel time for me, Fraeulein.  Your hot-headed duke gives strange license to his murderous courtiers,” answered Max.

“It has been a hard time for others, too,” she responded.  “Hard for uncle, hard for tante, hard for Twonette—­very hard for Twonette.”  She spoke jestingly, but one might easily see her emotion.

“And you, Fraeulein?” he asked smilingly.

“I—­I dare not say how hard it has been for me, Little Max.  Do you not see?  I fear—­I fear I shall—­weep—­if I try to tell you.  I am almost weeping now.  I fear I have grown gray because of it,” she answered, closing with a nervous laugh.  Max, too, could hardly speak.  She smiled up into his face, and bending before him stood on tiptoe to bring the top of her head under his inspection.

“You may see the white hairs if you look carefully,” she said.

Max laughed and stooped to examine the great bush of fluffy dark hair.

“I see not one white hair,” he said.

“Look closely,” she insisted.

He looked closely, and startled us all, including Yolanda, by putting his lips to the fragrant, silky mass.

“Ah!” exclaimed Yolanda, stepping back from him and placing her hand to the top of her head on the spot that he had kissed.  She looked up to him with a fluttering little laugh:—­

“I—­I did not know you were going to do that.”

“Neither did I,” said Max.

Castleman and his wife looked displeased and Twonette’s face wore an expression of amused surprise.

After a constrained pause Frau Katherine said:—­

“Our guests are not in the habit of kissing us.”

“No one has kissed you, tante,” retorted Yolanda, “nor do they intend to do so.  Do not fear.  I—­I brought it on myself, and if I do not complain, you may bear up under it.”

“It certainly is unusual to—­” began the frau.

“Tante,” cried Yolanda, flushing angrily and stamping her foot.  Tante was silent.

“Your words night before last brought marvellous comfort to us, Fraeulein,” said Max.  “Where were you, and how—­”

“My words?  Night before last?” asked Yolanda, in open-eyed wonder, “I have not seen you since three weeks ago.”