Max had not only been brought up with that idea as the chief element in his education, but he had also inherited it from two score generations of men and women that had learned, believed, and taught the same lesson.  We may by effort efface the marks of our environment, but those we inherit are bred in the bone.  Yolanda was not for Max.  He could not control his heart; it took its inheritance of unbidden passion from a thousand scores of generations which had lived and died and learned their lesson centuries before the House of Hapsburg began; but he could control his lips and his acts.

With Max’s growing love for Yolanda came a knightly reverence which was the very breath of the chivalry that he had sworn to uphold.  This spirit of reverence the girl was quick to observe, and he lost nothing by it in her esteem.  At times I could see that this reverential attitude of Max almost sobered her spirits; to do so completely would have been as impossible as to dam the current of a mountain stream.

On the evening of our first day out of Basel we were merrily eating our suppers in a village where we had halted for the night, when I remarked that I had met a man, while strolling near the river, who had said that war was imminent between Burgundy and Switzerland.  My remark immediately caught Yolanda’s sharp attention.

“Yes,” said I, “we left Switzerland none too soon.  This man tells me, on what authority I know not, that a herald will soon be sent by Duke Charles carrying defiance to the Swiss.  What of value the duke expects to obtain from barren Switzerland outside of Basel, I do not know.  Fighting for fighting’s sake is poor sport.”

“Forbear your wise saws, Sir Karl, and tell me what the man said,” demanded Yolanda.

“He told me,” I replied, “that he had heard the news at Metz, and that it was supposed Duke Rene would muster his forces in Lorraine and turn them against Burgundy in case of war with Switzerland.”

“I predicted evil when Burgundy took Nancy from Lorraine,” cried Yolanda, excitedly.  “The hollow conventions made with Lorraine after the capture of that city were but the promises of a man under duress.  The only ties that will bind a narrow man are those of immediate self-interest.  There can be no lasting treaty between France and Burgundy so long as King Louis covets Flanders and is able to bribe our neighbors.  These conventions between Burgundy, Lorraine, Bourbon, and St. Pol will hold only so long as Burgundy does not need them.”

“That is surely true, Fraeulein,” I said.

“Yes,” she continued, “and should Burgundy suffer any great misfortune or be crippled for an hour, those small states would be upon his back like a pack of wolves, and he would be ruined.  Lorraine, Bourbon, and St. Pol do not see that Burgundy alone stands between them and the greedy maw of France.  Should King Louis survive my—­my Lord of Burgundy five years, these dukes and counts will lose their feudal rights and become servile vassals of France, not in name, as now they are, but in sorry fact.”