They could not tell them at once, for the second act had begun when March
and the general came back; and after the opera was over and they got out
into the crowded street there was no chance, for the general was obliged
to offer his arm to Mrs. March, while her husband followed with his
daughter.

The facades of the theatre and of the hotels were outlined with thickly
set little lamps, which beaded the arches of the bridges spanning the
Tepl, and lighted the casements and portals of the shops. High above all,
against the curtain of black woodland on the mountain where its skeleton
had been growing for days, glittered the colossal effigy of the
doubleheaded eagle of Austria, crowned with the tiara of the Holy Roman
Empire; in the reflected splendor of its myriad lamps the pale Christ
looked down from the mountain opposite upon the surging multitudes in the
streets and on the bridges.

They were most amiable multitudes, March thought, and they responded
docilely to the entreaties of the policemen who stood on the steps of the
bridges, and divided their encountering currents with patient appeals of
"Bitte schon! Bitte schon!" He laughed to think of a New York cop saying
"Please prettily! Please prettily!" to a New York crowd which he wished
to have go this way or that, and then he burned with shame to think how
far our manners were from civilization, wherever our heads and hearts
might be, when he heard a voice at his elbow:

"A punch with a club would start some of these fellows along quicker."

It was Stoller, and March turned from him to lose his disgust in the
sudden terror of perceiving that Miss Triscoe was no longer at his side.