n his young days in Quebec the
village story-teller; one who, by inheritance or competency, becomes
semi-officially a raconteur for the parish; filling in winter evenings,
nourishing summer afternoons, with tales, weird, childlike, daring.

Now Gaston turned and said to Jacques:

"Well, Brillon, I've forgotten, as you see; tell them how it was."

Two hours later when Jacques retired on some errand, amid ripe applause,
Ian said:

"You've got an artist there, Cadet: that description of the fight with
the loop garoo was as good as a thing from Victor Hugo. Hugo must have
heard just such yarns, and spun them on the pattern. Upon my soul, it's
excellent stuff. You've lived, you two."

Another night Ian Belward gave a dinner, at which were present an
actress, a singer of some repute, the American journalist, and others.
Something that was said sent Gaston's mind to the House of Commons.
Presently he saw himself in a ridiculous picture: a buffalo dragging the
Treasury Bench about the Chamber; as one conjures things in an absurd
dream. He laughed outright, at a moment when Mademoiselle Cerise was
telling of a remarkable effect she produced one night in "Fedora,"
unpremeditated, inspired; and Mademoiselle Cerise, with smiling lips and
eyes like daggers, called him a bear. This brought him to him self, and
he swam with the enjoyment. He did enjoy it, but not as his uncle wished
and hoped. Gaston did not respond eagerly to the charms of Mademoiselle
Cerise and Madame Juliette.

Was Delia, then, so strong in the barbarian's mind? He could not think
so, but Gaston had not shown yet, either for model, for daughter of joy,
or for the mademoiselles of the stage any disposition to an amour or a
misalliance; and either would be interesting and sufficient! Models went
in and out of Ian's studio and the studios of others, and Gaston chatted
with them at times; and once he felt the bare arm and bare breast of
a girl as she sat for a nymph, and said in an interested way that her
flesh was as firm and fine as a Tongan's. He even disputed with his
uncle on the tints of her skin, on seeing him paint it in, showing
a fine eye for colour. But there was nothing more; he was impressed,
observant, interested--that was all. His uncle began to wonder if the
Englishman was, after all, deeper in the grain than the savage. He
contented himself with the belief that the most vigorous natures are the
most difficult to rouse. Mademoiselle Cerise sang,