The narrator tells us that he's really thinking about Zsiao--he's worried that one of her mistresses will show up at the house someday, and that she'll have to use her beauty to find another woman to live with. He tells her that if she gets tired of her, he'll still need to use this beauty to look for someone else, even though she's not the type of girl who relies on beauty to live. She tells him that she hasn't come back from abroad, but that she doesn't have any news from her sister, who's been away for a while. She's just tired, she says, and she has to prepare for a divorce. She says that because of their contract, she won't be able to take any of her sister's money with her, so she needs to work to support herself. She asks her sister to join in on the conversation, but he refuses, saying that it's a family dinner and they shouldn't talk about business at this point. He says that something happened in Paris that made him want to come back to China, and he wants to check on his sister. He asks her to