With a silent bow to the manager's wife, they sat down opposite to me, and seemed to recognize my face. At least, they exchanged a few whispered words before beginning to eat, which they did with affected haste and indifference, entering into no conversation with any of their colleagues. They evidently desired to give the impression that they considered themselves far superior to their present associates, and had only strayed among them by chance. While the simple but very excellent food was handed around--Fraeulein Kunigunde brought in the dishes, placed them at the ends of the table, and left those who sat nearest to pass them farther--I had time enough to study the two youngest and most interesting members of the company. They had improved during the five years--at least, so far as their personal appearance was concerned. The young man, now probably about six and twenty, had a remarkably handsome face, whose swift play of expression instantly betrayed the actor. I afterward learned he was the child of a Hebrew father and a Polish mother. From the latter he inherited the passionate fire of his eyes and the feminine delicacy of his complexion, as well as his small hands and feet. He wore a light summer suit of the latest fashion, and had a ruby ring on his little finger. But, notwithstanding his soft tenor voice, his laugh was sneering and disagreeable, and I noticed with surprise that he sometimes cast a side glance at Frau Luise which expressed open dislike, while her lip curled whenever their eyes chanced to meet. Fraeulein Victorine's face puzzled me still more. It revealed a two-fold nature, at once aspiring and sordid. Nothing could be more charming than her large, mournful gray eyes, under delicate black brows, and her little nose seemed to have been stolen from some Greek statue. But the mouth belied this refinement of nature. Spite of her youth, it was flabby and prematurely withered, and, even when it remained firmly closed, one expected nothing to issue from it save commonplace and repulsive words. Her little figure was the daintiest, and at the same time the most perfectly rounded that could be imagined, and she understood how to set off its charms in the best light. At first I was myself deluded as I watched her melting Madonna gaze wander so disconsolately over the company, and read in it a touching legend of lost youth and premature contempt for the world. But, as soon as she began to whisper with her neighbor, an expression of coldness and insolence rested on her face that was intensely repulsive to me.