"I understand now your Reveillière," Chrysler said.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE CAMPAIGN PLAN.
On Saturday evening of Chrysler's first week at the Manoir, they went to the Institute. It was a house down the Dormillière Street, that held its head somewhat higher, and tipped it back a little more proudly than the rest,—a long old fashioned wooden cottage, of many windows, and some faded pretensions to the ornamental: still elegant in the light curve of its capacious grey roof, the slender turned pillars of its gallery, separated by horizontal oval arches, its row of peaked and moulded dormer windows, its ornaments, its broad staircase climbing up to the doorway, and the provincial-aristocratic look of its high set-back position in its garden. The name of a rich money-lender, who had been feared in days gone by—"Cletus the Ingrate,"—was mentioned under breath in the stories about it. But ever since his death, many years before, it had been the faded outer shell into which the intellectual kernel of Dormillière life withdrew itself, and in the passage as one entered, the sign "INSTITUT CANADIEN," which had once had its place on the front, might be seen resting on the floor,—a beehive and the motto "Altius Tendimus," occupying the space between the two words.
The interior was a very great contrast to the outside. Its fittings were in the pleasantest of light-hued paints and varnished pine: maps, casts, and pictures enlivened the walls and corners; a handsome library and nucleus of a museum, with reading tables, opened to the left, and a large debating hall to the right—together occupying the whole of the principal floor.
That evening the row of front windows shone with particular illumination for a meeting of Chamilly's supporters, and as Chrysler entered with Haviland and Zotique, they caught from De La Lande the fragmentary assertion, "It is France that must be preached!"
"Aux armes, citoyens!" roared Zotique, entering like a captain on the stage. "Give me my battalion! Write me my letters of marque:" Then throwing one hand in air: "Allons! what has been done?"
The audience sitting around on tables and windowsills, as well as on groups of chairs, laughed boisterously and thumped the floor, and recalled to the proper work of the meeting, commenced a cry of "l'Honorable!"
"The Honorable presides!" intoned Benoit, like a crier; and Genest, accustomed to understand their wishes, seated himself in the chair, while a momentary lull fell over the noisiness.
"A Secretary!"