self upon reflection.

LIV.

He had forgotten Kenby in these aesthetic interests, but he remembered
him again when he called a carriage, and ordered it driven to their
hotel. It was the hour of the German mid-day table d'hote, and they
would be sure to meet him there. The question now was how March should
own his presence in time to prevent his wife from showing her ignorance
of it to Kenby himself, and he was still turning the question hopelessly
over in his mind when the sight of the hotel seemed to remind her of a
fact which she announced.

"Now, my dear, I am tired to death, and I am not going to sit through a
long table d'hote. I want you to send me up a simple beefsteak and a
cup of tea to our rooms; and I don't want you to come near for hours;
because I intend to take a whole afternoon nap. You can keep all the
maps and plans, and guides, and you had better go and see what the
Volksfest is like; it will give you some notion of the part the people
are really taking in all this official celebration, and you know I don't
care. Don't come up after dinner to see how I am getting along; I shall
get along; and if you should happen to wake me after I had dropped
off--"

Kenby had seen them arrive from where he sat at the reading-room window,
waiting for the dinner hour, and had meant to rush out and greet Mrs.
March as they passed up the corridor. But she looked so tired that he
had decided to spare her till she came down to dinner; and as he sat
with March at their soup, he asked if she were not well.

March explained, and he provisionally invented some regrets from her
that she should not see Kenby till supper.

Kenby ordered a bottle of one of the famous Wurzburg wines for their
mutual consolation in her absence, and in the friendliness which its
promoted they agreed to spend the afternoon together. No man is so
inveterate a husband as not to take kindly an occasional release to
bachelor companionship, and before the dinner was over they agreed that
they would go to the Volksfest, and get some notion of the popular life
and amusements of Wurzburg, which was one of the few places where Kenby
had never been before; and they agreed that they would walk.

Their way was partly up the quay of the Main, past a barrack full
of soldiers. They met detachments of soldiers everywhere, infantry,
artillery, cavalry.

"This is going to be a great show," Kenby said, meaning the manoeuvres,
and he added, as if now he h