She sat at one end of the long narrow table. On her right hand was her daughter, and when Minna saw the two together she saw how much family likeness there was between them, although in every detail they were so different. The young girl was dressed now in some bright-coloured gown: not a pretty gown, and still a morning, not an evening, garment. She looked perhaps a degree brighter than when Minna had met her in the morning, but still not quite happy. On the signora’s left hand was an unoccupied place. The rest of the company were dispersed as before. Signor Giuseppe was again Minna’s _vis-à-vis_. He came in rather late, and did not cast many glances towards the head of the table until, after the soup had gone round, the person arrived for whom the place beside Signora Dietrich seemed to have been reserved. This was a young man whom Minna had never before seen at the house. He did not, however, appear to be an entire stranger, for he exchanged greetings with several of those present as he made his way up the room behind Signor Giuseppe to Fulvia, so that Minna, being opposite, had full opportunity for observing him, and, indeed, as he made his way along and his eyes fell upon her, he honoured her with an open and particularly impudent stare. He was not, physically considered, an attractive specimen of his kind, being short, thin to attenuation, and prematurely aged in face and figure. His dress was excessively neat, and a whiff of Es. Bouquet came across the table as he went his way. This inadequate figure supported a head rather large in proportion to it, with a face which revolted Minna to her inmost being the instant she saw it. Originally, he had probably rejoiced in a rather delicate pink and white complexion; it was nothing to boast of now, but the features were regular and clearly cut; the eyes were bright, and he wore a diminutive light moustache, just shading his upper lip. Intrinsically there was nothing to find fault with in his features or in the colour of his eyes; many a man beside whom he would have appeared an Adonis on a small scale goes through the world and succeeds in pleasing, or, at least, in not offending. It was his expression which hung forth the flag of warning, before which Minna, with the instinct of a good woman not devoid of intelligence, shrank and mistrusted. The utter badness, vulgarity, and cynical self-satisfaction of the creature were patent to anyone who chose to see them.