At eight o'clock, Dubourg had been dressed more than an hour, and was pacing the floor of his room, his plumed hat under his arm, practising dignified bows, graceful smiles, and a noble bearing. He had put the whole contents of his treasury in his pocket, and, having no watch, he thought for a moment of taking his steel loop from his hat and placing it in his fob; but it might be recognized as having been on his hat, so he contented himself with a red ribbon, of which he showed only the end. The clock struck nine at last, the hour at which one may decently appear in society; a carriage was waiting; he entered it, and gave the driver the address indicated on the note. The carriage stopped in a lonely street, before a house of poor appearance. Dubourg alighted. A lackey, there being no concierge, stood at the door of the house, apparently posted there as a sentinel; and he lost no time in ushering Dubourg up a dirty staircase, at the foot of which were two lamps that seemed surprised to be there. But Dubourg was going over in his mind the sentence he had prepared for his salutation to the marchioness, and he did not notice the uncleanness of the house. The servant opened a door on the first floor and entered an anteroom, wherein the eye sought in vain any article of furniture; although it was dimly lighted, the spots of grease on the walls and the soiled, discolored floor could be plainly seen. But the servant led Dubourg through this room at a rapid pace, and, opening another door into the salon, announced in a loud tone: "Monsieur le Baron Potoski!" At that name, there was a great commotion in the salon, and a lady rose and rushed forward to meet Dubourg, expressing in the most cordial terms her pleasure in receiving him as her guest. Dubourg answered whatever came into his head; he walked into the room, saluting to right and left, and dropped into a chair beside the Marquise de Versac, whom he then took occasion to scrutinize. He saw that he had been wise not to indulge his imagination in advance. The mistress of the house was a woman who seemed to be fully forty-five years of age, despite the care with which she had blackened her eyebrows, reddened her lips, and whitened her complexion. She was fashionably dressed, but her gown, which had a long train, seemed to embarrass her; her head was overladen with flowers and ribbons, and a triple necklace of pearls embellished a long, yellow neck, rising pitifully above a pair of fleshless shoulders, which the marchioness was barbarous enough to expose to all eyes, as if they were pleasing to the sight. Dubourg did not stop to examine all that; he remembered what his landlady had said to him, and tried to think the marchioness charming. While she addressed him in the most flattering terms, he cast a glance about the salon.