as I earned his love and confidence.
At such times we used to leave the Hapsburg ancestry to care for itself
and dumped Hapsburg dignity into the moat. But the crowning good I had
brought to him was this journey into the world. The boy loathed the
clinging dignities that made of him, at home, a royal automaton, tricked
out in tarnished gold lace, faded velvets, and pompous airs. He often
spoke of the pleasures I had given him. One evening at Grote's inn I
answered:--

"Nonsense, Max, nonsense," though I was so pleased with his gratitude I
could have wept.

"It is not nonsense. You have saved me from becoming a mummy. I see it
all, Karl, and shudder to think of the life that might have been mine. I
take no pleasure in seeing gouty old dependents bowing, kneeling, and
smirking before me. Of course, these things are my prerogative, and a
man born to them may not forego what is due to his birth even though it
irks him. But such an existence--I will not call it living--saps the
juice of life. Even dear old mother is compelled to suppress her love
for me. Often she has pressed me to her breast only to thrust me away at
the approach of footsteps. By the way, Karl," continued Max, while
preparing for bed, "Yolanda one day at Basel jestingly called me
'Little Max.'"

"The devil she did," I exclaimed, unable to restrain my words.

"Yes," answered Max, "and when in surprise I told her that it was my
mother's love-name for me, she laughed saucily, 'Yes, I know it is.'"

"The dev-- Max, you can't mean what you say?" I cried, in an ecstasy of
delight over the news he was telling me.

"Indeed I do," he returned. "I told her I loved the name as a sweet
reminder of my mother."

"What did she say?" I asked.

"She seemed pleased and flashed her eyes on me--you know the way she
has--and said: 'I, too, like the name. It fits you so well--by
contraries.' Where could she have learned it, and how could she have
known it was my mother's love-name for me?"

"I cannot tell," I answered.

So! here was a small fact suddenly grown big, since, despite all
evidence to the contrary, it brought me back to my old belief that this
fair, laughing Yolanda was none other than the great Princess of
Burgundy. I was sure that she had gained all her information concerning
Max from my letters to Hymbercourt.

It racks a man's brain to play shuttlecock with it in that fashion.
While I lay in bed trying to sleep, I thought of the meeting between the