Charley could not read her tale. He had, however, a hot impulse to
follow and ask her if she would vanish from the scene if the medicine-man
should sing of Rosette and a man of thirty, not ninety, years. The fight
he had had all day with his craving for drink had made him feverish, and
all his emotions--unregulated, under the command of his will only--were
in high temperature. A reckless feeling seized him. He would go to
Rosalie, look into her eyes, and tell her that he loved her, no matter
what the penalty of fate. He had never loved a human being, and the
sudden impulse to cry out in the new language was driving him to follow
the girl whose spirit for ever called to him.

He made a step forward to follow her, but stopped short, recalled to
caution and his danger by the voice of the medicine-man:

"I had a friend once--good fellow, bad fellow, cleverest chap I ever
knew. Tremendous fop--ladies loved him--cheeks like roses--tongue like
sulphuric acid. Beautiful to look at. Clothes like a fashion-plate--got
any fashion-plates in Chaudiere? 'who's your tailor?'" he added, in the
slang of the hour, with a loud laugh, then stopped suddenly and took off
his hat. "I forgot," he added, with upturned eyes and a dramatic
seriousness, "your tailor saved my life to-day-henceforth I am the friend
of all tailors. Well, to continue. My friend that was--I call him my
friend, though he ruined me and ruined others,--didn't mean to, but he
did just the same,--he came to a bad end. But he was a great man while
he lived. And what I'm coming to is this, the song he used to sing when,
in youthful exuberance, we went on the war-path like our young friend
over there"--he pointed to a young habitant farmer, who was trying hard
to preserve equilibrium--"Brown's Golden Pectoral will cure that cough,
my friend!" he added, as the young man, gloomily ashamed of the laughter