ten o’clock in
the evening
As it was turning the corner of the Champs-Elysees it stopped , and a tall young man left a group of people with whom he was talking and came up to her . They talked for a few moments ; the young man returned to his friends , the horses set out again , and as I came near the group I recognised the one who had spoken to Marguerite as the Comte de G. , whose portrait I had seen and whom Prudence had indicated to me as the man to whom Marguerite owed her position . It was to him that she had closed her doors the night before ; I imagined that she had stopped her carriage in order to explain to him why she had done so , and I hoped that at the same time she had found some new pretext for not receiving him on the following night . How I spent the rest of the day I do not know ; I walked , smoked , talked , but what I said , whom I met , I had utterly forgotten by ten o'clock in the evening . All I remember is that when I returned home , I spent three hours over my toilet , and I looked at my watch and my clock a hundred times , which unfortunately both pointed to the same hour . When it struck half past ten , I said to myself that it was time to go . I lived at that time in the Rue de Provence ; I followed the Rue du Mont-Blanc , crossed the Boulevard , went up the Rue Louis-le-Grand , the Rue de Port-Mahon , and the Rue d'Antin .