"Othomar..."
He looked up and saw the empress at the door. She approached:
"Barzia was asking where you were," she whispered. "He was uneasy about you...."
He smiled to her and shook his head to say no, that he was calm.
She came close, climbed the steps of the catafalque and leant against his arm:
"How peaceful his little face is!" she murmured. "Oh, Othomar, I have not yet given him my last kiss! And to-morrow he will no longer belong to me: all those people will then be filing past."
"But now, mamma, he still belongs to us ... to you...."
"Othomar ..."
"Mamma ..."
"Shall I not have ... to lose you also?"