Suddenly I heard the young man with the golden beard say, in a very audible voice, as he looked at us.
After the last notes of the overture of _"Die Meistersinger,"_ as we applauded with all our might, the group of strangers came nearer.
"No longer any doubt," one of them said, "since they applauded."
And the young man with the golden beard advanced without hesitation.
"I am Hans Richter--" said he as he saluted us--"and you certainly must be the friends who have just been visiting Richard Wagner. The Master wrote me to put myself at your service and to act as your guide about Munich, but he did not tell me where to find you."
Hans Richter, the chief of 'Orchestra of the Royal Theatre, who would have the honour of conducting the "_Rheingold_!"
After cordial greetings Richter presented his friends, first the heavily bearded man, then the other.
"Herr Scheffer, a Wagnerian fanatic. Herr Franz Servais, son of the celebrated Belgian violinist; he has just come from Brussels to hear the _"Rheingold"_."
So the man who had appeared to be the personification of a German student was a Belgian composer!
All seated at the same table with foaming bocks before us, we quickly became acquainted, and found each other very congenial, since we served under the same banner. It appeared that they had been searching for us all over Munich. Our passage to the hotel of the Three Kings had been traced, but we had gone from there without leaving any address, and from that point they could find no clue. Herr Scheffer had been very keen to find us before this especial day was over, and had applied to the police, but chance had forestalled them.
[Illustration: CORNER OF JUDITH GAUTIER'S SALON.]
"We had promised," said Richter, "to conduct you to a reunion this evening, at the house of the Countess of Schleinitz. We shall all be there."
"Liszt will be there," exclaimed Servais, "he arrived in Munich yesterday, and you will also see the Countess Muchanoff."
I thought of Cosima, and her sorrow at being disapproved of by her father: I felt I would rather not see him. But my companions had already joyfully accepted, and had arranged a meeting place for the evening, at eight o'clock.
The Countess of Schleinitz, wife of the minister of the royal house of Prussia, at whose house we met, was an extremely gracious little person, very small and delicate, even fragile. She spoke French like a Parisian, a French sparkling with wit and drollery, and in her glance there was a gleam of passion. One could have said:--