"I am sure Mrs. Larue takes a deep interest in you."
Colburne colored in his turn under a sense of mortification mingled with something like anger. Both were relieved when Doctor Ravenel entered, and thereby broke up the fretting dialogue. Now why was not the young man informed of the real state of affairs in the family? Simply because the Doctor, fearful for his child's happiness, and loth to lose dominion over her future, could not yet bring himself to consider the engagement as a finality.
There were no scenes during the leave of absence. Neither Colburne nor Madame Larue made a declaration or received a refusal. Two days before the leave of absence terminated he sadly and wisely and resolutely took his departure for Thibodeaux. Nothing of interest happened to him during the winter, except that he accompanied his regiment in Weitzel's advance up the Teche, which resulted in the retreat of Mouton from Camp Beasland, and the destruction of the rebel iron-clad "Cotton." A narrative of the expedition, written with his usual martial enthusiasm, but which unfortunately I have not space to publish, was received by Doctor Ravenel, and declared by him to be equal in precision, brevity, elegance, and every other classical quality of style, to the Commentaries of Julius Cæsar. The Colonel remarked, in his practical way, that the thing seemed to have been well planned, and that the Captain's account was a good model for a despatch, only a little too long-winded and poetical.
Colburne being absent, Mrs. Larue turned her guns once more upon the Doctor. As the motto of an Irishman at a Donnybrook fair is, "Wherever you see a head, hit it," so the rule which guided her in the Vanity Fair of this life was, "Wherever you see a man, set your cap at him." It must not be supposed, however, that she made the same eyes at the Doctor that she made at Colburne. Her manner would vary amazingly, and frequently did vary to suit her company, just as a chameleon's jacket is said to change color according to the tree which he inhabits; and this was not because she was simple and easily influenced, but precisely because she was artful and anxious to govern, and knew that soft looks and words are woman's best means of empire. It was interesting to see what a nun-like and saintly pose she could take in the presence of a clergyman. To the Colonel she acted the part of Lady Gay Spanker; to the Doctor she was femme raisonnable, and, so far as she could be, femme savante; to Colburne she of late generally played the female Platonic philosopher. It really annoys me to reflect how little space I must allow myself for painting the character of this remarkable woman. "She was nobody's fool but her own," remarked the Colonel, who understood her in a coarse, incomplete way; nor did she deceive either Lillie or the Doctor in regard to the main features of her character, although they had no suspicion how far she could carry some of her secret caprices. It is hard to blind completely the eyes of one's own family and daily intimates.
As a hen is in trouble when her ducklings take to the water, so was Lillie's soul disturbed when her father was out on the flattering sea of Madame's conversation. Carter was amused at the wiles of the widow and the terrors of the daughter. He comprehended the affair as well as Lillie, at the same time that he did not see so very much harm in it, for the lady was pretty, clever, young enough, and had money. But nothing came of the flirtation—at least not for the present. Although the Doctor was an eminently sociable being and indefatigably courteous to all of Eve's daughters, he was not at bottom what you call a ladies' man. He was too much wrapped up in his daughter and in his scientific studies to be easily pervious to the shafts of Cupid; besides which he was pretty solidly cuirassed by fifty-five years of worldly experience. Madame even felt that she was kept at a distance, or, to use a more corporeal and specially correct expression, at arm's length, by his very politeness.
"Doctor, have you not thought it odd sometimes that I never consult you professionally?" she asked one day, changing suddenly from femme raisonnable to Lady Gay Spanker.
"Really, it never occurred to me. I don't expect to prescribe for my own family. It would be unfair to my brother doctors. I believe, too, that you are never sick."
"Thanks to Heaven, never! But that is not the only cause. The truth is—perhaps you have not noticed the fact—but you are not married. If you want me for a patient, there must first be a Mrs. Ravenel."
"Ah! Yes. Somebody to whom I could confide what is the matter with you."