"It must be very late," said Dubourg, glancing about. "Frédéric lives with his father, Monsieur le Comte de Montreville. How can I venture to go there at this time of night? The count is inclined to be strict; he's not one of your stage fathers, with whom you can do whatever you choose. On the contrary, they say that he demands the most absolute obedience from his son, and that his son trembles before him. But I have no doubt that his severity is exaggerated; at all events, he hardly knows me. I have been to the house several times, but he has seen me only once or twice. Frédéric's apartment is in a different wing from his, so we will try our luck." And Dubourg, leaving at last the circle to which he had confined his steps for so long, walked rapidly toward Rue de Provence, where the Comte de Montreville's mansion was situated. As he drew nearer to Frédéric's abode, his hope of seeing him before the next day became fainter and fainter. Ought he to turn the whole house upside down in the middle of the night? If he woke the son, he would wake the father too; and it was a decidedly ill-advised method of improving his acquaintance with Monsieur de Montreville, to call at his house between two and three o'clock in the morning. But Dubourg walked on, even while he reflected thus; like a lover, who has sworn never to see his faithless one again, but who prowls constantly about her abode and always ends by going in, still repeating: "I will never see her again!"--At such time, reason speaks, but passion guides our footsteps. Poor mortals! is it your fault, pray, that passion so often carries the day? As he approached the house, Dubourg's eyes were agreeably surprised by the appearance of a double row of private carriages, whose lanterns lighted a large part of the street. He quickened his pace; the carriages were most numerous in front of the Comte de Montreville's house, and the courtyard was filled with coupés, landaus, and vis-à-vis. The coachmen were talking together, the footmen swearing impatiently; servants hurried to and fro across the courtyard. Lamps on the carriage-stones and on the broad steps banished the darkness, and delicious strains of music floated out through the windows of the beautiful salon, brilliantly lighted by thousands of candles, forming a strong contrast with the depressing silence that reigned a short distance away. Dubourg no longer walked: he ran, he leaped, he flew. The sight of the lanterns, the noise made by so numerous a company, and the strains of the contra-dances within, drove from his mind the serious thoughts which had begun to monopolize it.