Renée started. She had not felt the chilly air which was freezing her shoulders. As she passed before her looking-glass, she stopped and glanced at herself mechanically. With an involuntary smile she went down. And, indeed, most of the guests had arrived. There were her sister Christine, a young lady of twenty, very simply dressed in white muslin; her aunt Élisabeth, the widow of the notary Aubertot, in black satin, a little old woman of sixty, of most exquisite amiability; her husband's sister, Sidonie Rougon, a gentle, scraggy woman, of no particular age, with a face like soft wax, and whose dull-coloured dress effaced still further; then the Mareuils, the father, Monsieur de Mareuil, who had just gone out of mourning for his wife, a tall handsome man, empty-headed and serious, bearing a striking resemblance to the valet Baptiste; and the daughter, that poor Louise as people called her, a young girl of seventeen, puny and slightly hump-backed, who wore with a sickly grace a soft white silk dress with red spots; then quite a group of serious men, gentlemen wearing many decorations, official personages with pale and solemn faces; and, farther off, another group, young men with an air of vice about them, and wearing low cut waistcoats, surrounding five or six ladies of the greatest elegance, amongst whom throned the inseparables, the little Marchioness d'Espanet, in yellow, and the fair Madame Haffner, in violet. Monsieur de Mussy, the cavalier whose bow Renée had ignored, was also there, with the uneasy look of a lover expecting to receive his dismissal. And, in the midst of the long trains spread out over the carpet, two contractors, masons who had made their fortunes, named Mignon and Charrier, with whom Saccard had some business to settle on the morrow, were moving heavily about on their big feet, holding their hands behind their backs and feeling most uncomfortable in their dress suits. Standing near the door, Aristide Saccard managed to greet each new arrival, whilst holding forth to the group of serious men with all his southern animation and snuffling. He shook the guest's hand and spoke a few amiable words. Short, and pitiful-looking, he bobbed up and down like a puppet; and of all his puny, dark and crafty person, the most prominent object was the red bow of his ribbon of the Legion of Honour which he wore very large.