[5] "Mind sets matter in motion, and permeates all matter."
Virgil.—Æneid, Bk. vi.
PAYOT AND DUVAL
"The best laid schemes o' mice an' men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain
For promised joy."
Burns.
If you turn past the church of Notre Dame de Lorette and walk towards the corner of the Rue La Bruyère, you will notice a charming detached villa on the right with a little garden all to itself shut in by ornamental railings.
It was the third evening after the events related in the last chapter, when a military man might have been seen in his cabriolet leaving the elaborately wrought iron gates of the villa, and directing his coachman to proceed to No—Boulevard Haussmann near the Arc de Triomphe.
It had been raining heavily all the afternoon, and the foot passengers could be seen picking their way between the omnibuses, and endeavouring to avoid the mud which splashed up on all sides. The cafés and restaurants were beginning to light up, and the little marble tables outside became more and more crowded with guests. A crowd had assembled in one of the small side streets, listening to a trio of musicians who were playing outside one of those curious little café-restaurants only patronised by a select fraternity of Bohemians who meet nightly year in and year out to chat and play dominoes, and take their evening meal at 1 fr. 50 c., wine inclusive, with clock-like regularity. A woman who had evidently been trained as a public singer, and who had known better days, was singing one of those exquisite airs of Charles Gounod with a voice which still bore traces of its former richness. But the scene was unheeded by the occupant of the carriage, who was mentally rehearsing the manœuvres which would give him the most favourable position in the mimic campaign which he was about to undertake.