He calculated that La Croix-Firmin must belong to a fashionable club, and it was not long before he had discovered his name and address in the year-book of such a one. It was to this club that he had recourse in order to ascertain whether the individual in question was in Paris. The reply was in the affirmative. Hubert reconnoitred the Rue La Peyrouse, in which his rival lived, and he immediately satisfied himself that by standing on the footpath of one of the Places intersected by this street, he could watch the house, which was one of two stories in height, and which certainly contained but a very small number of tenants. He had said to himself that he would take up a position there one morning, and wait until he saw some man come out who appeared to be he whom he sought. He would then question the porter, under some pretext or other, and would, doubtless, thus receive information. It was a method of primitive simplicity, and one in which all those who in their youth have had a passionate adoration for some celebrated writer will recognise the ingenuousness of the stratagems which they employed to see their hero. If this plan failed, Hubert could fall back upon an application to one of those whom he knew among the members of the club; but he felt a great repugnance to taking such a step. Accordingly he found himself on the spot at nine o'clock one cold December morning. The weather was dry and clear, the sky of a pale blue, and the half-fashionable, half-exotic quarter given over to the traffic of its crowd of tradesmen and grooms. Hubert saw emerge successively from the house which he was examining, some servants, an old lady, a little boy followed by an abbé, and finally, at about half-past eleven, a man who was still young, of medium height, fashionably dressed, slender and strong in his otter-lined overcoat. This man was just buttoning up his collar as he proceeded straight in Hubert's direction. The latter also advanced, and brushed past the stranger. He saw a somewhat heavy profile, a moustache of the colour of burnished gold, a complexion already coloured by the cold, and the dull eye of a hard liver who has gone late to bed, after a night spent at the gaming table or elsewhere. An inexpressible pain at his heart caused the jealous lover to hasten to the house. "Monsieur de la Croix-Firmin?" he asked. "The Count is not at home," replied the doorkeeper. "But he made an appointment with me for half-past eleven, and I am punctual," said Hubert, drawing out his watch; "has he long gone out?" "No, sir; you ought to have met him. The Count was here five minutes ago; he cannot have turned the corner."