"Beg pardon! I expected to see Herr Anders."
"Herr Anders is not here; he is in his own house, the third door upstairs."
He of the dark complexion said this in a forbidding tone and in German, which, though fluent enough, betrayed the foreigner in every syllable.
"Then I will go and look for him there."
"Herr Anders is going to the Exhibition; he is dressing."
"Reinhold now observed that the young man himself was in the act of dressing and still in his shirt-sleeves, whose extreme whiteness made the darkness of his complexion even more remarkable. The interruption of his toilette quite explained the unfriendly tone of his answers, and the want of hospitality that made him hold the door only just enough open for him to speak to the stranger.
"Perhaps you know whether Fräulein Schmidt is in her studio?"
The pertinacity of the question seemed to irritate the young man. The black brows frowned heavily, the delicate upper lip with its slight moustache curled sufficiently to show the white teeth for a moment. "Non lo so," he blurted out.
He shut the door, muttering between his teeth something else in Italian which did not sound like a blessing.
Reinhold felt convinced that Ferdinanda was in her studio, and that the ungracious youth knew it; but at the same time it would not make her very unhappy if he paid his visit later, or did not pay it at all. At all events he must look for his uncle first.