"At last you are found!" cried she, "you have become very elusive, you are never at your apartments, you never come when one invites you, so we decided to look for you everywhere. For the last hour we have been going to all the beer-gardens, all the restaurants in Munich; this is the very last one."
We were a little disconcerted. Villiers had made a show of running away, but the retreat was cut off, the doors of the other carriages opened, ladies and gentlemen, who figured in the elegant society which had been present at the disastrous fête, spread out over the much be-glorified side-walk.
"It is very wrong of you to be so exclusive," continued Madame Muchanoff, "to organise charming evening parties, without letting anyone know! Now that we have discovered you, we shall take you all away with us. Come, come, you must do some charades, we are all so curious to see that!"
How did they know?... and did they really imagine that we would proceed to play at charades in the city?
"But, dear lady----" said I to her, "it was only
among ourselves and as one would play at children's games, that we amused ourselves so; we should lose all our spontaneity if we undertook to be serious about it."
They begged and they insisted, but we remained firm and unmoved. We asserted that we considered them all as our guests, that we ought to receive and entertain them, and that they must excuse us for not being able to do it in a Café.
At this moment someone opened for us an empty room, turned on the lights, and all these gay people, very much pleased, went in there, followed by the surprised and admiring gaze of the public. The ladies loosened their evening wraps and revealed their bare shoulders and light costumes. The men were in evening coats.
Many of the persons present we hardly knew, and at first we were a little ill at ease. But someone ordered tea, someone else champagne, the women lighted their Russian cigarettes, as slender as toothpicks, and the momentary awkwardness vanished. Count von Berghem, a man with very fascinating manners, of whom I know nothing more than his name, entered into a discussion with Schuré and Servais upon the analogies which exist between the Gods of Edda, from whom Wagner has taken his heroes, and the Gods of Olympus, between Wotan and Jupiter.