If
Yolanda were Mary of Burgundy, Max might one day have a reward worthy of
his virtue. Yolanda's sweetness and beauty and Mary's rich domain would
surely be commensurate with the noblest virtue. I was not willing that
Max should cease wooing Yolanda--if I might give that word to his
conduct--until I should know certainly that she was not the princess.
This, I admit, was cruel indifference to Yolanda's peace of mind or
pain of heart, if Max should win her love and desert her.
Because of a faint though dazzling ray of hope, I encouraged Max after
this to visit the bridge over the moat, dangerous though it was; and
each night I received an account of his doings. Usually the account was
brief and pointless. He went, he stood upon the bridge, he saw the House
under the Wall, he returned to the inn. But a night came when he had
stirring adventures to relate.
At the time of which I am writing every court in Europe had its cluster
of genteel vagabonds,--foreigners,--who stood in high favor. These
hangers-on, though perhaps of the noblest blood in their own lands, were
usually exiles from their native country. Some had been banished for
crimes; others had wandered from their homes, prompted by the love of
roaming so often linked with unstable principles and reckless
dispositions. Burgundy under Charles the Rash was a paradise for these
gentry. The duke, who was so parsimonious with the great and wise Philip
de Comines that he drove him to the court of Louis XI, was open-handed
with these floating villains.
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