Nothing of importance occurred at the table, but after dinner the duke abruptly offered Max a large sum of gold to accompany him to Switzerland. Max thanked His Grace and said he would give him an answer soon. The duke urged an early reply, and Max said:--
"With Your Grace's permission we will attend to-morrow's morning audience, and will make our answer after Your Lordship has risen."
Charles acquiesced, and we soon left the castle. The duke, as I have already told you, was very rich. Hymbercourt once told me that he had two hundred and fifty thousand gold crowns in his coffers at Luxembourg. That was probably more than the combined treasuries of any two kings in Europe could show. Max and I were short of money, and the sum that the duke offered seemed enormous. Neither Max nor his father, Duke Frederick, had ever possessed as much money at one time.
While we were leisurely walking across the courtyard toward the Postern, three ladies and two gentlemen, accompanied by outriders and pages carrying falcons, rode by us and passed out through the Postern. We followed, and overtook them at the town end of the drawbridge, where they had halted. When we came up to them, we recognized the duchess and the princess. The duchess bowed smilingly, but the princess did not speak, though she looked in our direction.
The cavalcade turned to the left, and went up a narrow street toward Cambrai Gate, evidently bound for the marshes. Max and I walked straight ahead toward the Cologne bridge, intending, as we had promised, to go back to Castleman's. Two hundred yards up the street I glanced back, and saw a lady riding through the Postern, back to the castle. I knew at once that the princess had returned, and I was sure of meeting Yolanda,--sweet, smiling, tender Yolanda,--at the dear old House under the Wall. I did not like the princess; she was cold, haughty, supercilious, and perhaps tinged with her father's cruelty. I longed ardently for Yolanda to come out of her skin, and my heart leaped with joy at the early prospect.
I was right in my surmise. Yolanda's sweet face, radiant with smiles and soft with dimples, was pressed against the window-pane watching for us when we crossed the moat bridge at Castleman's door.
"To see her face again is like coming back to heaven; isn't it, Karl?" said Max.
Yolanda ran to the door and opened it.
"I am glad you did not stay with her," she said, giving a hand to Max and to me, and walking into the room between us. She was like a child holding our hands.
I had seen the world and its people in all its phases, and I prided myself on my shrewdness, but without my knowledge of the stairway in the wall, I would have sworn that Yolanda had played a trick on me by leading me to believe that she was the Princess Mary. Even with full knowledge of all the facts, I found myself doubting. It is small cause for wonder, therefore, that Max was deceived.