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.

These animals were not so conscious as lions at the approach of princes;
they tossed and stamped impatiently in the long interval before the
Regent and his daughter-in-law came to welcome their guests. All the
human beings, both those who were in charge and those who were under
charge, were in a quiver of anxiety to play their parts well, as if there
were some heavy penalty for failure in the least point. The policemen
keeping the people, in line behind the ropes which restrained them
trembled with eagerness; the faces of some of the troopers twitched. An
involuntary sigh went up from the crowd as the Regent's carriage
appeared, heralded by outriders, and followed by other plain carriages of
Bavarian blue with liveries of blue and silver. Then the whistle of the
Kaiser's train sounded; a trumpeter advanced and began to blow his
trumpet as they do in the theatre; and exactly at the appointed moment