Again he hesitated. The garden, the _restauration_--full of people:
women knitting, children bawling, men reading; and all sipping coffee to
a background of gossip. He remembered that it was the sacred hour of
_Kaffeeklatsch_, and he would have escaped by a flight of steps that led
down to the beach, but he was hailed. A company of a half-dozen sat at a
large table under the trees, and the host was an orchestral conductor
well known to Davos. There was no alternative. He took a chair. He was
introduced as the celebrated pianoforte-virtuoso to men and women he had
never seen before, and hoped--so rancorous was his mood--never to see
again. A red-headed girl from Brooklyn, who confessed that she thought
Maeterlinck the name of some new Parisian wickedness, further bothered
him with questions about piano teachers. No, he didn't give lessons! He
never would! She dropped out of the conversation. Finally by an effort
he swore that his head was splitting, that he must return to Ischl. He
broke away. When he discovered that the crowd was also bound for the
same place, he abruptly disappeared.
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