But he had no fear of failure, and at half-past nine, fresh, in spite of the fact that he had returned from Monte Carlo on the last train the night before, he briskly descended the steps of the hill that separates Cannes from the Gulf of Juan. Pierre Hautefeuille had installed himself for the winter in one of those hotels whose innumerable flower-framed windows line this height, which the people of Cannes have adorned with the exotic name of California. It was one of those mornings of sun and wind--of fresh sunlight and warm breeze--which are the charm of winter on this coast. Roses bloomed by hundreds on hedge and terrace. The villas, white or painted, shone through their curtains of palm trees and araucarias, aloes and bamboos, mimosas and eucalyptus. The peninsula of La Croisette projected from the hill toward the islands, and its dark forest of pines, flecked with white houses, arose in strong relief between the tender blue of the sky and the sombre blue of the sea, and the Sire de Corancez went on gayly, a bouquet of violets in the buttonhole of the most becoming coat that a complacent tailor ever fashioned for a handsome young man in chase of an heiress, his small feet tightly fitted in russet shoes, a straw hat on his thick, black hair; his eyes bright, his teeth glistening in a half smile, his beard lustrous and scented, his movements graceful. He was happy in the animal portion of his nature; a happiness that was wholly physical and sensual. He was able to enjoy the divine sunlight, the salt breeze, odorous with flowers; this atmosphere, soft as spring; to enjoy the morning and his own sense of youth, while the calculator within him soliloquized upon the character of the man he was about to rejoin and upon the chances of success:--