"
"We will call you a princess now, Your Highness," answered Max, not to
be driven from his position.
"Very well," cried Yolanda, with a laugh and a sweeping courtesy. "If
you will have me a princess, a princess I'll be. But I will not be the
Princess of Burgundy. She saved your life, and I am jealous of her--I
hate her."
She stamped her foot, and the angry gleam in her eyes was genuine. There
could be no doubt that she was jealous of the princess. I could not
account for her unique attitude toward herself save on one hypothesis:
she was, even to herself, two distinct persons. Yolanda was a happy
burgher girl; Mary was a wretched princess. The two widely differing
conditions under which she lived were so distinct, and were separated by
a gulf so broad, that to her the princess and the burgher girl were in
no way related.
With change of condition there was always a change of person. The
unhappy princess would come down the stairway in the wall; God would
kindly touch her, and lo! she was transformed into a happy Yolanda.
Yolanda's light feet would climb the dark stone steps, and God was once
more a frowning father. There must also be added Max's share in her
emotions. Perhaps she feared the princess as she would have dreaded a
rival; since she longed with all her passionate, tender heart to win Max
for herself only. It would have been an easy task, as princess, to win
him or any man; but if she could win him as Yolanda, the burgher girl,
the prize would be the greatest that could fall to a woman.
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