"Antoinette, daughter, this is Sir Karl de Pitti, who will accompany us to Peronne."
I made my bow and assisted Fräulein Antoinette to the ground. The other young lady sprang nimbly from her saddle without assistance and waited, as I thought, to be presented. Castleman did not offer to present her, and she ran to the house, followed by serene Antoinette. I concluded that the smaller girl was Fräulein Castleman's maid. I knew that great familiarity between mistress and servant was usual among the burgher class.
The smaller girl was certainly attractive, but I did not care for her acquaintance. Antoinette was the one in whose eyes I hoped to find favor, first for myself and then for Max. By her help I hoped Max might be brought to meet the Princess of Burgundy when we should reach Peronne. I had little doubt of Max's success in pleasing Antoinette; I was not at all anxious that he should please the smaller maid. There was a saucy glance in her dark eyes, and a tremulous little smile constantly playing about her red, bedimpled mouth, that boded trouble to a susceptible masculine heart. Max, with all his simplicity, though not susceptible, had about him an impetuosity when his interest was aroused of which I had learned to stand in wholesome dread. I was jealous of any woman who might disturb his dreams of Mary of Burgundy, and this little maid was surely attractive enough to turn any man's head her way if she so desired.
Later in the afternoon I saw Fräulein Antoinette in the shop looking at silks and laces. Hoping to improve the opportunity, I approached her, and was received with a serene and gracious smile. Near Antoinette were the saucy brown eyes and the bedimpled mouth. Truly they were exquisitely beautiful in combination, and, old as I was, I could not keep my eyes from them. The eyes and dimples came quickly to Antoinette, who presented me to her "Cousin Fräulein Yolanda Castleman." Fräulein Yolanda bowed with a grace one would not expect to find in a burgher girl, and said with the condescension of a princess:--
"Sir Karl, you pleasure me."
I was not prepared for her manner. She probably was not Antoinette's maid. A pause followed my presentation which might have been meant by the brown-eyed maid as permission to withdraw. But I was for having further words with Antoinette. She, however, stepped back from her cousin, and, if I was to remain, I must speak to my lady Fräulein Yolanda Castleman or remain silent, so I asked,--
"Do you reside in Basel, Fräulein?"
"No, no," she replied, with no touch of bourgeois confusion, "I am a Burgundian. Uncle Castleman, after promising Twonette" (I spell the name as she pronounced it) "and me for years, has brought us on this long journey into the world. I am enjoying it more than any one can know, but poor uncle lives in dread of the journey home. He upbraids himself for having brought us and declares that if he but had us home again, nothing could induce him to start out with such a cargo of merchandise."
"Well he may be fearful," I answered. "Where one's greatest treasure is, there is his greatest fear, but peace reigns on the road to Burgundy, and I hope your good uncle's fears are without ground save in his love."
"I hear you are to accompany us, and of course we shall be safe," she said, the shadow of a smile playing suspiciously about her mouth and dancing in her eyes.