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Twonette had prepared a great tankard of wine and honey, with pepper and allspice to suit Yolanda's taste, and we all sat before the great blazing yule fire, as joyful and content as any six people in Christendom. Twonette and Yolanda together occupied one large chair; Twonette serenely allowing herself to be caressed by Yolanda, who was in a state of mind that compelled her to caress some one.
I had, at any rate, to be content with them, since Yolanda's affairs were none of mine. Had I not been sure that Max's training and inheritance gave him a shield against her darts, she and her affairs would have given me deep concern.
The good frau and her husband sat at either end of the table, Castleman, his daughter, and Yolanda occupied one side, while I sat by Max opposite them. If Castleman had offered objection to the arrangement, he had been silenced. I was especially anxious that Max should devote himself to Twonette, but, as I had expected, Yolanda's attractions were far too great to be resisted.
I felt that I was growing weak in mind. Yolanda's desire to tell Max her secret, and her refusal; her longing for human sympathy, and the lack of it; her wish that he should remain in Peronne for a month all these made me feel that she was the princess. I could not help hoping that Hymbercourt was mistaken in pointing out Her Highness.
Had he suspected that Hymbercourt was speaking of Yolanda's marriage, there surely would have been a demonstration. "No," answered Hymbercourt, "the letter has not been sent, but the duke will despatch it at once. It will probably be the chief business of this morning's audience. The duke wants the marriage celebrated before he leaves for Switzerland. That will be within three or four weeks.
The metamorphosis was complete, and Max's hallucination, I felt sure, would be cured. The princess's face was not burned on his heart, whatever might be true of Yolanda's. I can give no stronger testimony to the marvellous quality of the change this girl had wrought in herself than to tell you that even I began to doubt, and wonder if Yolanda had tricked me. The effect on Max was instantaneous.
Slow-going, guileless Max began to suspect a lurking intention on Yolanda's part to quiz him. "Did not Sir Karl say something about your having been born in Styria?" asked the girl, glancing slyly at the ring. "No, he did not," answered Max, emphatically. "I suppose I was born in Rome no, I mean Lombardy but it cannot matter much to you, Fräulein, where I was born if I do not wish to tell."
But now he was leaving, and her dream was about to close, since Max would probably never come back to her. Not the least painful of Yolanda's emotions was the knowledge that she could insure Max's return by telling him that she was the Princess of Burgundy. But she did not want this man whom she loved so dearly, and who, she knew, loved her, if she must win him as princess.
The color returned to her face while I watched her, and I felt that committing a forgery was a small price to pay for witnessing so beautiful a sight. Yolanda's breath soon dried the ink, and then we examined my work. I had performed wonders. The keenest eye could not detect the alteration. Yolanda, as usual, sprang from the deepest purgatory of trouble to the seventh heaven of joy.
After dinner, which we all took together that day, she put him off with excuses until drowsy Uncle Castleman had taken himself off for a nap. Then Yolanda quickly said: "Fetch me my hood, Twonette. I shall not need a cloak. I am going to walk out with Sir Max." Twonette instantly obeyed, as if she were a tire-woman to a princess, and soon returned wearing her own hood and carrying Yolanda's.
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