I did not like the princess; she was cold, haughty, supercilious, and perhaps tinged with her father's cruelty.

I longed ardently for Yolanda to come out of her skin, and my heart leaped with joy at the early prospect.
I was right in my surmise.

Yolanda's sweet face, radiant with smiles and soft with dimples, was pressed against the window-pane watching for us when we crossed the moat bridge at Castleman's door.
"To see her face again is like coming back to heaven; isn't it, Karl ?" said Max.
Yolanda ran to the door and opened it.
"I am glad you did not stay with her," she said, giving a hand to Max and to me, and walking into the room between us.

She was like a child holding our hands.
I had seen the world and its people in all its phases, and I prided myself on my shrewdness, but without my knowledge of the stairway in the wall, I would have sworn that Yolanda had played a trick on me by leading me to believe that she was the Princess Mary.

Even with full knowledge of all the facts, I found myself doubting.