They fully understood each other's position.
Max knew that between him and the burgher maiden there could be no thought of marriage.

She, it seemed, was equally aware of that fact.

All that he had been taught to value in life--father, mother, family and position, his father's subjects, who would one day be his, his father's throne, on which he would one day sit--stood between him and Yolanda.
They stood between him and the achievement of any desire purely personal to himself and not conducive to the welfare of his state.

He felt that he did not belong to himself; that his own happiness was never to be considered.

He belonged to his house, his people, and his ancestors.
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.