She tracked him as far as the Rue de Rivoli, and then lost him.  There were vast surging crowds in the Rue de Rivoli, and much bunting, and soldiers and gesticulatory policemen.  The general effect of the street was that all things were brightly waving in the breeze.  She was caught in the crowd as in the current of a stream, and when she tried to sidle out of it into a square, a row of smiling policemen barred her passage; she was a part of the traffic that they had to regulate.  She drifted till the Louvre came into view.  After all, Gerald had only strolled forth to see the sight of the day, whatever it might be!  She knew not what it was.  She had no curiosity about it.  In the middle of all that thickening mass of humanity, staring with one accord at the vast monument of royal and imperial vanities, she thought, with her characteristic grimness, of the sacrifice of her whole career as a school-teacher for the chance of seeing Gerald once a quarter in the shop.  She gloated over that, as a sick appetite will gloat over tainted food.  And she saw the shop, and the curve of the stairs up to the showroom, and the pier-glass in the showroom.

Then the guns began to boom again, and splendid carriages swept one after another from under a majestic archway and glittered westward down a lane of spotless splendid uniforms.  The carriages were laden with still more splendid uniforms, and with enchanting toilets.  Sophia, in her modestly stylish black, mechanically noticed how much easier it was for attired women to sit in a carriage now that crinolines had gone.  That was the sole impression made upon her by this glimpse of the last fete of the Napoleonic Empire.  She knew not that the supreme pillars of imperialism were exhibiting themselves before her; and that the eyes of those uniforms and those toilettes were full of the legendary beauty of Eugenie, and their ears echoing to the long phrases of Napoleon the Third about his gratitude to his people for their confidence in him as shown by the plebiscite, and about the ratification of constitutional reforms guaranteeing order, and about the empire having been strengthened at its base, and about showing force by moderation and envisaging the future without fear, and about the bosom of peace and liberty, and the eternal continuance of his dynasty.

She just wondered vaguely what was afoot.

When the last carriage had rolled away, and the guns and acclamations had ceased, the crowd at length began to scatter.  She was carried by it into the Place du Palais Royal, and in a few moments she managed to withdraw into the Rue des Bons Enfants and was free.

The coins in her purse amounted to three sous, and therefore, though she felt exhausted to the point of illness, she had to return to the hotel on foot.  Very slowly she crawled upwards in the direction of the Boulevard, through the expiring gaiety of the city.  Near the Bourse a fiacre overtook her, and in the fiacre were Gerald and a woman.  Gerald had not seen her; he was talking eagerly to his ornate companion.  All his body was alive.  The fiacre was out of sight in a moment, but Sophia judged instantly the grade of the woman, who was evidently of the discreet class that frequented the big shops of an afternoon with something of their own to sell.