was
the large and fashionable dwelling of the Count and Countess of Morcerf.
A high wall surrounded the whole of the hotel, surmounted at intervals
by vases filled with flowers, and broken in the centre by a large gate
of gilded iron, which served as the carriage entrance. A small door,
close to the lodge of the concierge, gave ingress and egress to the
servants and masters when they were on foot.

It was easy to discover that the delicate care of a mother, unwilling to
part from her son, and yet aware that a young man of the viscount's age
required the full exercise of his liberty, had chosen this habitation
for Albert. There were not lacking, however, evidences of what we may
call the intelligent egoism of a youth who is charmed with the indolent,
careless life of an only son, and who lives as it were in a gilded cage.
By means of the two windows looking into the street, Albert could see
all that passed; the sight of what is going on is necessary to young
men, who always want to see the world traverse their horizon, even if
that horizon is only a public thoroughfare. Then, should anything appear
to merit a more minute examination, Albert de Morcerf could follow up
his researches by means of a small gate, similar to that close to the
concierge's door, and which merits a particular description. It was a
little entrance that seemed never to have been opened since the house
was built, so entirely was it covered with dust and dirt; but the
well-oiled hinges and locks told quite another story. This door was a
mockery to the concierge, from whose vigilance and jurisdiction it was
free, and, like that famous portal in the "Arabian Nights," opening at
the "Sesame" of Ali Baba, it was wont to swing backward at a cabalistic
word or a concerted tap from without from the sweetest voices or whitest
fingers in the world. At the end of a long corridor, with which the
door communicated, and which formed the ante-chamber, was, on the right,
Albert's breakfast-room, looking into the court, and on the left the
salon, looking into the garden. Shrubs and creeping plants covered the
windows, and hid from the garden and court these two apartments, the
only rooms into which, as they were on the ground-floor, the prying eyes
of the curious could penetrate. On the floor above were similar rooms,
with the addition of a third, formed out of the ante-chamber;
these three rooms were a salon, a boudoir, and a bedroom. The salon
down-stairs was only