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I relate this history in the order of its happening, and wish, if possible, to place before you the manner in which this question of Yolanda's identity puzzled me.
Those who know her say the lady has not her like in all the world." A soft light came to Yolanda's face as he spoke, and she answered slowly: "Doubtless the lady had like news of you, and is curious to know what manner of man you are. She too may have dreamed of an ideal."
My Lord Seneschal, find me fifty thousand men who are ready to die for a sheepskin. Body of me! A sheepskin! I do love it well." Yolanda's audience was roaring with laughter by this time, but her face was stern and calm. "Silence, you fools," she cried hoarsely, but no one was silent, and Max laughed till the tears came to his eyes.
All created things, animate and inanimate, have in them an uncontrollable impulse which, in their spring, reverts with a holy retrospect to the great first principle of existence, the love of reproduction. Yolanda's spring had come, and her heart was a flower with the sacred bloom. Being a woman, she loved it and cuddled it for the sake of the pain it brought, as a mother fondles a wayward child.
Max would be with the duke, and would, I hoped, augment the favor with which Charles already honored him. Should Yolanda's letter make trouble with France, Duke Charles might be induced, through his personal feelings, to listen to Max's suit.
Yolanda's delight knew no bounds. She sprang from her chair, exclaiming: "Catch them! Catch them!" and led the way. She climbed on chairs, tables, and window shelves, and soon had her hands full of the demure little songsters. Max, too, was pursuing the wrens, and Twonette, losing part of her serenity, actually caught a bird.
Visions of trouble with France growing out of Yolanda's "t," and of a subsequent union between Max and the princess, floated before my mind, even amidst the din that surrounded me. Taking the situation by and large, I was in an ecstasy of joy. Max's victory was a thousand triumphs in one. It was a triumph over his enemy, a triumph over his friends, but, above all, a triumph over himself.
"You are now speaking of Yolanda," I said, not knowing what the wishes of the princess might be in regard to enlightening him. He looked at me and answered: "Karl, if a woman's face is burned on a man's heart, he knows it when he sees it." "You know Yolanda's face, certainly, and I doubt if Yolanda will thank you for mistaking another's for it." "I have made no mistake, Karl," he answered.
She ran excitedly to her mother, who was sitting on the divan, and exclaimed: "Oh! mother, the sweet Blessed Virgin has sent help!" "In what manner, child?" asked the duchess, fondling Yolanda's hair while the girl knelt beside her. "Here, mother, here! Here is help; here in this very letter that was intended to be my undoing. I cannot wait to thank the Holy Mother."
If Yolanda were Mary of Burgundy, Max might one day have a reward worthy of his virtue. Yolanda's sweetness and beauty and Mary's rich domain would surely be commensurate with the noblest virtue. I was not willing that Max should cease wooing Yolanda if I might give that word to his conduct until I should know certainly that she was not the princess.
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