The library windows--" He ceased and looked fixedly towards the house.

Brett, too, gazed in silence.

They saw a small, pale-faced, exceedingly handsome Italian--a young man, with coal-black eyes and a mass of shining black hair--scowling at them from within the library.
A black velvet coat and a brilliant tie were the only bizarre features of his costume.

They served sufficiently to enhance his foreign appearance.
Such a man would be correctly placed in the marble frame of a Neapolitan villa; here he was unusual, _outre_, "un-English," as Brett put it.
But he was evidently master.

He flung open the window, and said, with some degree of hauteur: "Whom do you wish to see?
Can I be of any assistance ?" His accent was strongly marked, but his words were well chosen and civil enough, had his tone accorded with their sense.