e_ in something good I
got on Saturday. Ah--you shall see, you shall see!"

As Ringfield went in to his "good tea" Madame Poussette came out.
Rather to his astonishment, she sang to herself in passing, and
although her sad vacant eyes were not bent on him, he felt as if the
words were intended for his ear. What were those words?

His knowledge of French was limited, but still he could make out a kind
of rhyming refrain--

"Derriere
Chez mon pere
Il-y-avait un grand oiseau."

He stopped and tried to catch more as Madame went down the walk singing
low to herself.

"Derriere
Chez mon pere
Il-y-avait un grand oiseau.
la, la, la, la--
C'etait beau ca, c'etait beau."

CHAPTER V

THE UNSEEN HAND

"The procession of our Fate, howe'er
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power."

Had Ringfield continued his conversation with the _chatelaine_ of
Clairville he would in all probability have asked a few questions about
her theatrical career, placing it in his imagination in one of the
large American centres to which in the seventies or eighties all
Canadian artists gravitated. In this he would have been wrong.

In a back street in the purely French quarter of Montreal stood a
pillared and placarded building once known as the home of an ambitious
coterie, the _Cercle Litteraire_, which met fortnightly to discuss in
rapid incisive Canadian French such topics as "Our National
Literature," "The Destiny of Canada," and "The Dramatists of France,"
from which all _politique_ was supposed to be eliminated. The building
had originally been a house and private bank belonging to a courtly
descendant of an old family, a De Lotbiniere, who grew French walnut
and cherry trees, lettuces and herbs in the back garden. When the
banker died the _Cercle Litteraire_ bought the house for a small sum,
comparatively, seeing that it was built of good grey stone, had many
bright green shutters and an imposing facade of four pillars, and from
one part of it issued once a month the extremely high-class
journal--organ of the society--called "Le Flambeau," the other part
which comprised a fair-sized hall, retiring rooms, and secretary's
office and quarters, being altered to suit the needs of the _Cercle
Litteraire_. But in time the glories of the exclusive and classically
minded coterie faded, its leading spirits died or disappeared, the
superior monthly organ--torch fo