Eliza explained to Mann what she had in mind. He pondered it for a few moments. At first she saw concern, or even fear, on his face, which made her suspect that he did not really wish to do it, yet was loath to refuse, for fear of what he might say, were Eliza to go to him and pout. Mann was a young man—indeed, would have to be, to last for very long, working as he did—and Eliza saw clearly enough that he had been posted to this place to prove himself, or to fail, so that he could decide where to send Mann next. Mann had blue eyes a little too close together, and a broad brow, so expressive that in its creases and corrugations she could read his feelings like sonnets on parchment. He was intelligent, but lacking in resolution. She guessed that someone of strong personality would one day get the better of him, and that he would end up sitting at a banca on an upper floor of the House of the Golden Mercury in Leipzig, peering down into the courtyard with a mirror on a stick.