It will now be understood how Asie contrived to be in the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_ of the Palais de Justice with a summons in her hand, asking her way along the passages and stairs leading to the examining judge’s chambers, and inquiring for Monsieur Camusot, about a quarter of an hour before that gentleman’s arrival. Asie was not recognizable. After washing off her “make-up” as an old woman, like an actress, she applied rouge and pearl powder, and covered her head with a well-made fair wig. Dressed exactly as a lady of the Faubourg Saint-Germain might be if in search of a dog she had lost, she looked about forty, for she shrouded her features under a splendid black lace veil. A pair of stays, severely laced, disguised her cook’s figure. With very good gloves and a rather large bustle, she exhaled the perfume of powder a la Marechale. Playing with a bag mounted in gold, she divided her attention between the walls of the building, where she found herself evidently for the first time, and the string by which she led a dainty little spaniel. Such a dowager could not fail to attract the notice of the black-robed natives of the _Salle des Pas-Perdus_. Besides the briefless lawyers who sweep this hall with their gowns, and speak of the leading advocates by their Christian names, as fine gentlemen address each other, to produce the impression that they are of the aristocracy of the law, patient youths are often to be seen, hangers-on of the attorneys, waiting, waiting, in hope of a case put down for the end of the day, which they may be so lucky as to be called to plead if the advocates retained for the earlier cases should not come out in time. A very curious study would be that of the differences between these various black gowns, pacing the immense hall in threes, or sometimes in fours, their persistent talk filling the place with a loud, echoing hum--a hall well named indeed, for this slow walk exhausts the lawyers as much as the waste of words. But such a study has its place in the volumes destined to reveal the life of Paris pleaders. Asie had counted on the presence of these youths; she laughed in her sleeve at some of the pleasantries she overheard, and finally succeeded in attracting the attention of Massol, a young lawyer whose time was more taken up by the _Police Gazette_ than by clients, and who came up with a laugh to place himself at the service of a woman so elegantly scented and so handsomely dressed. Asie put on a little, thin voice to explain to this obliging gentleman that she appeared in answer to a summons from a judge named Camusot. “Oh! in the Rubempre case?” So the affair had its name already. “Oh, it is not my affair. It is my maid’s, a girl named Europe, who was with me twenty-four hours, and who fled when she saw my servant bring in a piece of stamped paper.”