e succeeded in buying three long black cloaks and three
black hats from a group of chorus-girls, flung one cloak over herself,
flung the others over the sobbing little marchionesses.

"I'm frightened, mamma!" sobbed Eleonore.

The duchess was determined to get home somehow:

"Come, come along!" she urged, driving the two girls before her.

The other ladies, in alarm, watched them disappear through a back-door
into a side-street....

The duchess pressed the bag with the jewels to her:

"For God's sake, don't cry; keep your heads!" she ordered her daughters.
"Walk on quietly and not too fast. Wrap your cloaks well round you."

She walked on, tall and erect between the two little trembling
marchionesses, in those chorus-girls' clothes; rain poured down.
Clusters of people ran up against them; they mingled with them; for a
moment she lost Helene:

"Wait a moment!" she said to Eleonore.

And they remained standing amid the press of people; troops came jogging
on; socialistic songs of triumph carolled up coarsely.... Then she went
back with Eleonore, pushing, shoving, giving Helene an opportunity to
get back to her:

"Now both give me an arm: here!..."

They did as they were told; thus, seemingly calm, slowly, slowly, as
though they were sight-seers who had also come to look, they reached the
Opera Square, where the mob was swarming up against the guards.
Carriages passed, at a walking-pace, escorted by soldiers. A wretched
old hired growler, with a gaunt hack, pushed a muddy wheel right up
against her, grazing her knees; a cuirassier of the escort raised his
sword threateningly against her....

"My God!" she cried, awe-struck, clutching the children.

She had first recognized the driver, in a dirty coat: a footman from the
Imperial, whose face she remembered. Then, with a swift glance into the
cab, she recognized--just close to a lamp-post with a number of
ornamental branches--the emperor leaning against Othomar and her own
stepson, Xardi. But the marquis did not recognize her, for, startled by
the great light, he quickly turned his face away and bent, sombrely,
protectingly, over the emperor and the crown-prince....

The girls had seen nothing; the duchess said nothing, afraid of
betraying them.... She felt all her pluck and assurance forsake her; she
shuddered from head to foot. She could not restrain her tears for her
poor emperor, who was dying, who was returning to his palace in such a
guise. A great, d