"Yes," returned Max.
"From what part, may I ask?" continued the girl, with a slight inclination of her head to one side and a flash from beneath the preposterously long lashes toward his hand.
"From--from Rome," stammered Max, halting at even so small a lie.
"Ah, Sir Karl said you were from Lombardy," answered the girl.
"Well--that is--originally, perhaps, I was," he returned.
"Perhaps your family lives in both places?" she asked very seriously.
"Yes, that is the way of it," he responded.
"Were you born in both places?" asked Yolanda, without the shadow of a smile. Max was thinking of the little lie he was telling and did not a.n.a.lyze her question.
"No," he answered, in simple honesty, "you see I could not be born in two places. That would be impossible."
"Perhaps it would be," replied Yolanda, with perfect gravity. Max was five years her senior, but he was a boy, while she had the self-command of a quick-witted woman, though she still retained the saucy impertinence of childhood. 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, Fraulein, where I was born if I do not wish to tell."
The direct course was as natural to Max as breathing. The girl was startled by his abruptness. After a pause she continued:--
"I am sure you are not ashamed of your birthplace, and--"
He interrupted her sharply:--
"I also am sure I am not ashamed of it."
"If you had permitted me to finish," she said quietly, "you would have had no need to speak so sharply. I spoke seriously. I wanted to say that I am sure you have no reason to feel ashamed of your birthplace, and that perhaps I ought not to have asked a question that you evidently do not want to answer. Uncle says if my curiosity were taken from me, there would be nothing left but my toes."
Her contrition melted Max at once, and he said:--
I will gladly tell you, Fraulein, if you want to know. I was born--"
"No, no," she interrupted, "you shall not tell me. I will leave you at once and see you no more if you do. Besides, there is no need to tell me; I already know. I am a sorceress, a witch. I regret to make the confession, but it is true; I am a witch."
"I believe you are," answered Max, looking at her admiringly and seating himself beside her on the window bench. He had learned from Gertrude of Augsburg and many other burgher girls that certain pleasantries were more objectionable to them in theory than in practice; but this burgher girl rose to her feet at his approach and seemed to grow a head taller in an instant. He quietly took his old place and she took hers. She continued as if unconscious of what had happened:--
"Yes, I am a sorceress." Then she drew her face close to Max, and, gazing fixedly into his eyes, said solemnly:--
"I can look into a person"s eyes and know if they are telling me the truth. I can tell their fortunes--past, present, and future. I can tell them where they were born. I can tell them the history of anything of value they have. Their jewellery, their--"
"Tell me any one of those things concerning myself," interrupted Max, suddenly alive with interest.
"No, it is too great a strain upon me," answered the girl, with amusing gravity.
"I entreat you," said Max, laughing, though deeply interested. "I believe you can do what you say. I beg you to show me your skill in only one instance."
The girl gently refused, begging Max not to tempt her.
"No, no, I cannot," she said, "good Father Brantome has told me it is sinful. I must not."
Half in jest but all in earnest, Max begged her to try; and, after a great deal of coaxing, she reluctantly consented to give a very small exhibition of her powers. Covering her face with her hands, she remained for the s.p.a.ce of a minute as if in deep thought. Then, making a series of graceful and fantastic pa.s.ses in the air with her hands, as if invoking a familiar spirit, she said in low, solemn tones:--
"You may now sit by me, Sir Max. My words must not be heard by any ears save yours."
Max seated himself beside the girl.
"Give me your word that you will tell no one what I am about to do and say," she said.
"I so promise," answered Max, beginning to feel that the situation was almost uncanny.
"Now, place in my hand some jewel or valued article of which I may speak," she said.
Excepting his sword and dagger, Max owned but one article of value--the ring Mary of Burgundy had given him. He hesitatingly drew it from his finger and placed it in the girl"s hand. She examined it carefully, and said:--
"Now, give me your hand, Sir Max." Her hand was not much larger than a big snowflake in early spring, Max thought, and it was completely lost to sight when his great fingers closed over it. The velvety softness of the little hand sent a thrill through his veins, and the firm, unyielding strength of his clasp was a new, delicious sensation to the girl. Startled by it, she made a feeble effort to withdraw her hand; but Max clasped it firmly, and she surrendered. After a short silence she placed the ring to her forehead, closed her eyes, and drew her face so near to Max that he felt her warm breath on his cheek. Max was learning a new lesson in life--the greatest of all. She spoke in soft whispers, slowly dropping her words one by one in sepulchral tones:--
"What--do--I see--surely I am wrong. No--I see clearly--a lady--a great lady--a princess. She smiles upon a man. He is tall and young. His face is fair; his hair falls in long, bright curls like yours. She gives him this ring; she asks him to be her husband--no--surely a modest maiden would not do that." She stopped suddenly, s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand from Max, returned the ring and cried, "No more, no more!"
She tossed her hands in the air, as if to drive off the spirits, and without another word ran to the parlor laughing, and threw herself on Uncle Castleman"s knee. Max slowly made the sign of the cross and followed the little enchantress. She had most effectually imposed on him. He was inclined to believe that she had seen the ring or had heard of it in Burgundy before the princess sent it; but Yolanda could have been little more than a child at that time--three years before. Perhaps she was hardly past fourteen, and one of her cla.s.s would certainly not be apt to know of the ring that had been sent by the princess. She might have received her information from Twonette, who, Franz said, was acquainted with Mary of Burgundy; but even had Yolanda heard of the ring, the fact would not have helped her to know it.
After our first evening with the Castlemans we got on famously together. True, Max and I felt that we were making great concessions, and I do not doubt that we showed it in many unconscious words and acts.
This certainly was true of Max; but Yolanda"s unfailing laughter, though at times it was provoking, soon brought him to see that too great a sense of dignity was at times ridiculous. He could not, however, always forget that he was a Hapsburg while she was a burgher girl, and his good memory got him many a keen little thrust from her saucy tongue. If Max resented her sauciness, she ran away from him with the full knowledge that he would miss her. She was much surer that she pleased and delighted him than he was that he pleased her, though of the latter fact she left, in truth, little room for doubt.
Max was very happy. He had never before known a playmate. But here in Basel the good Franz and his frau, Yolanda, Twonette, fat old Castleman, and myself were all boys and girls together, s.n.a.t.c.hing the joys of life fresh from the soil of mother earth, close to which we lived in rustic simplicity.
Since we had left Styria, our life, with all its hardships, had been a delight to Max, but it was also a series of constantly repeated shocks.
If the shocks came too rapidly and too hard, he solaced his bruised dignity with the thought that those who were unduly familiar with him did not know that he was the heir of the House of Hapsburg. So day by day he grew to enjoy the nestling comfort of a near-by friend. This, I grieve to say, was too plainly seen in his relations with Yolanda, for she unquestionably nestled toward him. She made no effort to conceal her delight in his companionship, though she most adroitly kept him at a proper distance. If she observed a growing confidence in Max, she quickly nipped it by showing him that she enjoyed my companionship or that of old Franz just as much. On such occasions Max"s dignity and vanity required balm.
"Oh, Karl," he said to me one evening while we were preparing for bed, "it seems to me I have just wakened to life, or have just got out of prison. No man can be happy on a pinnacle above the intimate friendships of his fellow-man and--and woman."
"Yes, "and woman." Well put, Max," said I.
Max did not notice my insinuation, but continued:--
"I have lived longer since knowing these lowly friends than in all the years of my life in Styria. Karl, you have spoiled a good, stiff-jointed Hapsburg, but you have made a man. If nothing more comes of this journey into the world than I have already had, I am your debtor for life. What would my dear old father and mother say if they should see me and know the life I am leading? In their eyes I should be disgraced--covered with shame."
"When you go back to Hapsburg," I said, "you can again take up your old, petrified existence and eat your husks of daily adulation. You will soon again find satisfaction in the bended knee, and will insist that those who approach you bow deferentially to your ancestors."
"I shall, of course, return to Hapsburg," he said. "It is my fate, and no man can change the destiny to which he was born. I must also endure the bowing and the adulation. Men shall honor my ancestors and respect in me their descendant, but I shall never again be without friends if it be in my power to possess them. As I have said, that is difficult for one placed above his fellow-man."
"There is the trouble with men of your degree," I answered. "Friends are not like castles, cities, and courtly servitors. Those, indeed, one may really own; but we possess our friends only as they possess us. Like a mirror, a friend gives us only what we ourselves give. No king is great enough to produce his own image unless he stands before the gla.s.s."
"Teach me, Karl, to stand before the gla.s.s," said Max, plaintively.