"Not love unser Max?" The exclamation came quick and indignant. "We worship him, gracious Fräulein; we would die for him any day, and think ourselves blessed with the chance. Oh, I would not let you go back to your own country with the thought that we do not love the best Kaiser a country ever had. As for the portrait, I did not know I spoke aloud; that sometimes happens to me, since I grow deaf and old. But I only wished it put away because it is so poor, it does unser Max (that is what he is pleased to have us call him) no justice. You—you would not recognize him from that picture. The Kaiser is a very different-looking man."
With this, Frau Johann went out to fetch another dish, which was ready 33 in the kitchen, to cool her hot face, and to scold herself for an old dummkopf all the way downstairs.
In the bedchamber which had so recently been turned into a dining- drawing-room, the young lady took advantage of the landlady's temporary absence to indulge in long-stifled laughter.
"Poor, transparent old dear!" she exclaimed. "I'm sure she doesn't dream that one reads her like a book. She is in a sad fright now, lest we should recognize 'unser Max' from his portrait, and spoil his precious incognito."
"Then you think that one of the gentlemen really is——" began the Grand Duchess.
"I am sure that he is," finished Princess Sylvia.
CHAPTER III
THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE BARE KNEES
"THIS is perfectly awful!" groaned the unfortunate lady who passed under the name of Miss Collinson.