Grumbach, even more oblivious, crashed into him.
Grumbach stammered an apology, and the other replied in his peculiar
dialect that no harm had been done. The jar, however, had roused Hans
out of his tragic musings. There was a glint of yellow in the Gipsy's
eye, a flaw in the iris. Hans gave a cry.
"You? I find you at this moment, of all others?"
The Gipsy retreated. "I do not know you. It is a mistake."
"But I know you," whispered Hans. "And you will know me when I tell you
that I am the gardener's boy you ruined some sixteen years ago!"
CHAPTER XIX
DISCLOSURES
The office of the American consulate in the Adlergasse ran from the
front to the rear of the building. Carmichael's desk overlooked the
street. But whenever a flying dream came to him he was wont to take his
pipe to the chair by the rear window, whence he could view the lofty
crests of the Jugendheit mountains. Directly below this window and
running parallel with it was the _Biergarten_ of the Black Eagle.
It is a quiet tonic to the mind to look off, to gaze at sunlit,
cloud-embraced mountain peaks, Walter Pater to the contrary.
Carmichael's mind that morning needed quiet, and so he came to this
window; and with a smoldering pipe let himself to dreams.
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