Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

"I hope," concluded the Doctor, "that hereafter, when I am away, you will allow Lillie to receive calls in your house. There is a back passage. It is neither quite decorous to receive gentlemen alone here, nor to send them away."

Mrs. Larue made no objection to this plan, seeing that she could be just as strict or just as careless a duenna as she chose.

"I wonder why he has such an aversion to the match," she thought. Accustomed to see men matured in vice lead innocent young girls to the altar, habituated to look upon the notoriously pure-minded Doctor as a social curiosity rather than a social standard, she scarcely guessed, and could not realize, the repugnance with which such a father would resign a daughter to the doubtful protection of a husband chosen from the class known as men about town.

"Aurait il découvert," she continued to meditate; "ce petit liaison de monsieur le colonel? Il est vraiment curieux mon beau-frere; c'est plutôt une vierge qu'un homme."

I beg the reader not to do this clever lady the injustice to suppose that she kept or ever intended to keep her promise to the Doctor. To him, indeed, she did not for a long time speak of the proposed marriage, intending thereby to lull his suspicions to sleep, and thus prevent him from offering any timely opposition to that natural course of human events which might alone suffice to bring about the desired end. But into Lillie's ears she perpetually whispered pleasant things concerning Carter, besides leaving the two alone together for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes at a time, until Lillie would get alarmed at her unusual position, and become either nervously silent or nervously talkative. For these services the Colonel was not as grateful as he should have been. He was just the man to believe that he could make his own way in a love affair, and need not burden himself with a sense of obligation for any one's assistance. Moreover, valuing himself on his knowledge of life, he thought that he understood Mrs. Larue's character perfectly, and declared that he was not the man to be managed by such an intriguante, however knowing. He did in fact perceive that she was corrupt, and by the way he liked her none the worse for it, although he would not have married her. To Colburne he spoke of her gaily and conceitedly as "the Larue," or sometimes as "La rouée," for he knew French well enough to make an occasional bad pun in it. The Captain, on the other hand, never mentioned her except respectfully, feeling himself bound to treat any relative of Miss Ravenel with perfect courtesy.

But while Carter supposed that he comprehended the Larue, he walked in the path which she had traced out for him. From week to week he found it more agreeable to be with Miss Ravenel. Those random tête-a-têtes which to her were so alarming, were to him so pleasant that he caught himself anticipating them with anxiety. The Colonel might have known from his past experience, he might have known by only looking at his high-colored face and powerful frame in a mirror, that it was not a safe amusement for him to be so much with one charming lady. Self-possessed in his demeanor, and, like most roués, tolerably cool for a little distance below the surface of his feelings, he was at bottom and by the decree of imperious nature, very volcanic. As we say of some fiery wines, there was a great deal of body to him. At this time he was determined not to fall in love. He remembered how he had been infatuated in other days, and dreaded the return of the passionate dominion. To use his own expression, "he made such a blasted fool of himself when he once got after a woman!"

Nevertheless, he began to be, not jealous; he could not admit that very soft impeachment; but he began to want to monopolize Miss Ravenel. When he found Colburne in her company he sometimes talked French to her, thereby embarrassing and humiliating the Captain, who understood nothing of the language except when he saw it in print, and could trace out the meaning of some words by their resemblance to Latin. The young lady, either because she felt for Colburne's awkward position, or because she did not wish to be suspected of saying things which she might not have dared utter in English, usually restored the conversation to her mother tongue after a few sentences. Once her manner in doing this was so pointed that the Colonel apologized.

"I beg pardon, Captain," he said, to which he added a white lie. "I really supposed that you spoke French."

No; Colburne did not speak French, nor any other modern language; he did not draw, nor sing, nor play, and was in short as destitute of accomplishments as are most Americans. He blushed at the Colonel's apology, which mortified him more than the offence for which it was intended to atone. He would have given all his Greek for a smattering of Gallic, and he took a French teacher the next morning.

Another annoyance to Colburne was Mrs. Larue. He was still so young in heart matters, or rather in coquetry, that he was troubled by being made the object of airs of affection which he could not reciprocate. I do not mean to say that the lady was in love with him; she never had been in love in her life, and was not going to begin at thirty-three. The plain, placid truth was, that she was willing to flirt with him to please herself, and determined to keep him away from Lillie in order to give every possible chance to Carter. Only when Mrs. Larue said "flirt," she meant indescribable things, such as ladies may talk of without reproach among themselves, but which, if introduced into print, are considered very improper reading. Meantime neither Carter nor Colburne understood her, although the former would have hooted at the idea that he did not comprehend the lady perfectly.