He started and reflected a moment. "Yes ... that is to say ... not recently.... Some time back he wrote that he was getting on all right. He was starting a career. He made urgent inquiries after the gracious baroness's whereabouts, and I, of course, was not fortunate enough to be able to enlighten him."
This sounded scarcely likely. A moment before he had asked her for news of Walter, and now when she asked him what Walter's address was, he was compelled to confess that his letter had given no address.
It was plain that he had lied.
It may have been that he hoped to raise her opinion of him by representing himself to be still on terms of friendship with her lover, and, as she for a similar motive had not strictly adhered to the truth, she could not very well blame him.
She now went on to explain the purpose of her visit. She told him of her difficulties with the delicate art which she had taken up a few months ago, of her desire to improve and perfect herself. Would he be so kind as to put her on the right road by recommending some artist who would give her lessons? This was really the only reason why she had called on him.
He listened with close attention, as if he took a professional interest in her future. But behind his gravity there lay something that disquieted her. It was certainly not pity, rather was it a sort of restraint, a concealment of the fact that the more she revealed the helplessness of her position the more he felt he was gaining some advantage.
"A perfectly simple matter, gracious Frau," he replied, and his manner was more natural than heretofore. "I have several good painters among the artists who supply models for my business. One of them," he turned over the pages of an address-book, "Kellermann ... is the very man ... but of that we can talk later. What seems to me of the first importance in the art you have chosen are other things. So you will pardon my indiscretion, I hope, if I ask you a few questions?"
She nodded assent.
"What training have you had in Art?"
"That is just it," she replied, struggling with her embarrassment; "it is because I have had no training that I want to learn."