is impossible.

[Enter Egmont (enveloped in a horseman's cloak, his hat drawn over his
face).

Egmont. Clara!

Clara (utters a cry and starts back). Egmont! (She hastens towards him.)
Egmont! (She embraces and leans upon him.) O thou good, kind, sweet
Egmont! Art thou come? Art thou here indeed!

Egmont. Good evening, Mother?

Mother. God save you, noble sir! My daughter has well-nigh pined to
death, because you have stayed away so long; she talks and sings about
you the live-long day.

Egmont. You will give me some supper?

Mother. You do us too much honour. If we only had anything--

Clara. Certainly! Be quiet, Mother; I have provided everything; there is
something prepared. Do not betray me, Mother.

Mother. There's little enough.

Clara. Never mind! And then I think when he is with me I am never
hungry; so he cannot, I should think, have any great appetite when I am
with him.

Egmont. Do you think so? (Clara stamps with her foot and turns pettishly
away.) What ails you?

Clara. How cold you are to-day! You have not yet offered me a kiss. Why
do you keep your arms enveloped in your mantle, like a new-born babe? It
becomes neither a soldier nor a lover to keep his arms muffled up.

Egmont. Sometimes, dearest, sometimes. When the soldier stands in ambush
and would delude the foe, he collects his thoughts, gathers his mantle
around him, and matures his plan and a lover--

Mother. Will you not take a seat, and make yourself comfortable? I must
to the kitchen, Clara thinks of nothing when you are here. You must put
up with what we have.

Egmont. Your good-will is the best seasoning.

[Exit Mother.

Clara. And what then is my love?

Egmont. Just what thou wilt.

Clara. Liken it to anything, if you have the heart.

Egmont. But first. (He flings aside his mantle, and appears arrayed in a
magnificent dress.)

Clara. Oh heavens!

Egmont. Now my arms are free! (Embraces her.)

Clara. Don't! You will spoil your dress. (She steps back.) How
magnificent! I dare not touch you.

Egmont. Art thou satisfied? I promised to come once arrayed in Spanish
fashion.

Clara. I had ceased to remind you of it; I thought you did not like
it--ah, and the Golden Fleece!

Egmont. Thou seest it now.

Clara. And did the emperor really hang it round thy neck!

Egmont. He did, my child! And this chain and Order invest the wearer
with the noblest privileges. On earth I acknowledge no judge over
my actions, except