the right time comes. You must tread the path that God has marked out
for you. Perhaps it leads to this princess; no one can tell. If so, you
must accept your fate, Sir Max." She sighed at the mere thought of so
untoward a fate for Max.

"I need make no oath not to marry the princess," answered Max. "She is
beyond my reach, even though I were dying for love of her."

"And you are not dying for love of her, are you?" asked Yolanda, again
taking the seat between Max and me.

"No," he responded.

"Nor for love of any woman?" she asked, looking toward Max.

"I'll not say that," he replied, laughing softly, and taking her hands
between his.

"No, no," she mused, looking in revery out the window. "No, we will not
say that."

I have always been as unsentimental as a man well can be, but I believe,
had I been in Max's place, I should have thrown away my crown for the
sake of Yolanda, the burgher girl. I remember wondering if Max would be
strong enough finally to reach the same conclusion. If he should be, my
faith in Yolanda's powers led me to believe that she would contrive a
plan to make him her husband, despite her father, or the devil and
all his imps.

There is a power of finesse in the feminine mind that no man may fully