“I thought that child ought to be in his mother’s charge,” he said.  With his own comfort provided for, he made no objections to Mrs. March’s plan; and Agatha went to take leave of Rose and his mother.  “By-the-way,” the general turned to March, “I found Stoller at the restaurant where we supped.  He offered me a place in his carriage for the manoeuvres.  How are you going?”

“I think I shall go by train.  I don’t fancy the long drive.”

“Well, I don’t know that it’s worse than the long walk after you leave the train,” said the general from the offence which any difference of taste was apt to give him.  “Are you going by train, too?” he asked Kenby with indifference.

“I’m not going at all,” said Kenby.  “I’m leaving Wurzburg in the morning.”

“Oh, indeed,” said the general.

Mrs. March could not make out whether he knew that Kenby was going with Rose and Mrs. Adding, but she felt that there must be a full and open recognition of the fact among them.  “Yes,” she said, “isn’t it fortunate that Mr. Kenby should be going to Holland, too!  I should have been so unhappy about them if Mrs. Adding had been obliged to make that long journey with poor little Rose alone.”

“Yes, yes; very fortunate, certainly,” said the general colorlessly.

Her husband gave her a glance of intelligent appreciation; but Kenby was too simply, too densely content with the situation to know the value of what she had done.  She thought he must certainly explain, as he walked back with her to the Swan, whether he had misrepresented her to Mrs. Adding, or Mrs. Adding had misunderstood him.  Somewhere there had been an error, or a duplicity which it was now useless to punish; and Kenby was so apparently unconscious of it that she had not the heart to be cross with him.  She heard Miss Triscoe behind her with March laughing in the gayety which the escape from her father seemed to inspire in her.  She was promising March to go with him in the morning to see the Emperor and Empress of Germany arrive at the station, and he was warning her that if she laughed there, like that, she would subject him to fine and imprisonment.  She pretended that she would like to see him led off between two gendarmes, but consented to be a little careful when he asked her how she expected to get back to her hotel without him, if such a thing happened.

LVIII.

After all, Miss Triscoe did not go with March; she preferred to sleep.  The imperial party was to arrive at half past seven, but at six the crowd was already dense before the station, and all along the street leading to the Residenz.  It was a brilliant day, with the promise of sunshine, through which a chilly wind blew, for the manoeuvres.  The colors of all the German states flapped in this breeze from the poles wreathed with evergreen which encircled the square; the workmen putting the last touches on the bronzed allegory hurried madly to be done, and they had, scarcely finished their labors when two troops of dragoons rode into the place and formed before the station, and waited as motionlessly as their horses would allow.