Colburne did not regret that he had been a soldier; he would not have missed the battle of Cedar Creek alone for a thousand dollars; but he sometimes reflected that if he had remained at home during the last three years, he might now be in a lucrative practice. From his salary as captain he had been able to lay up next to nothing. Nominally it was fifteen hundred and sixty dollars; but the income tax took out thirty dollars, and he had forfeited the monthly ten dollars allowed for responsibility of arms, etc., during the time he was on staff duty; in addition to which gold had been up to 290, diminishing the cash value of his actual pay to less than five hundred dollars. Furthermore he had lent largely to brother officers, and in consequence of the death of the borrowers on heroic fields, had not always been repaid. Van Zandt owed him two hundred dollars, and Carter had fallen before he could return him a similar sum. Nevertheless, thanks to the industry and economy of a father long since buried, the young man had a sufficient income to support him while he could plant the slowly growing trees of business and profit. He could live; but could he marry? Gold was falling, and so were prices; but even before the war one thousand dollars a year would not support two; and now it certainly would be insufficient for three. He considered this question a great deal more than was necessary for a man who meant to be a bachelor; and occasionally a recollection of Whitewood's eighty thousand gave him a pang of envy, or jealousy, or both together.
The lucre which he so earnestly desired, not for its own stupid sake, but for the gratification of a secretly nursed purpose, began to flow in upon him in small but constant driblets. Some enthusiastic people gave him their small jobs in the way of conveyancing, etc., because he had fought three years for his country; and at least, somewhat to his alarm, a considerable case was thrust upon him, with a retaining fee which he immediately banked as being too large for his pocket. Conscious that his legal erudition was not great, he went to a former fellow student who during the past four year had burrowed himself into a good practice, and proposed that they should take the case in partnership.
"You shall be counsellor," said he, "and I will be advocate. You shall furnish the law skeleton of the plea, and I will clothe it with appeals to the gentlemen of the jury. I used to be famous for spouting, you know; and I think I could ask a few questions."
"I will do it for a third," said the other, who was not himself a pleader.
"Good!"
It was done and the case was gained. The pecuniary profits were divided, but Colburne carried away all the popular fame, for he had spouted in such a manner as quite to dissolve the gentlemen of the jury. The two young men went into partnership on the basis afforded by their first transaction, and were soon in possession of a promising if not an opulent business. It began to seem possible that, at a not very distant day, Colburne might mean something if he should say, "I endow thee with my worldly goods."
CHAPTER XXXVI. A BRACE OF OFFERS.
At last Colburne gave Mrs. Carter a bouquet. It was a more significant act than the reader who loves flowers will perceive without an explanation. Fond as he was of pets and of most things which are, or stand as emblems of innocence, he cared very little for flowers except as features of a landscape. He was conscious of a gratification in walking along a field path which ran through dandelions, buttercups, etc.; but he never would have thought of picking one of them for his own pleasure any more than of picking a maple tree. In short, he was deficient in that sense which makes so many people crave their presence, and could probably have lived in a flowerless land without any painful sentiment of barrenness. Therefore it was only a profound and affectionate study into Mrs. Carter's ways and tastes which brought him to the point of buying and bringing to her a bouquet.
He was actually surprised at the flush of pleasure with which she received it: a pleasure evidently caused in great measure by the nature of the gift itself; and only in small part, he thought, by a consciousness of the motives of the giver. He watched her with great interest while she gaily filled a vase with water, put the bouquet in it, placed it on the mantel piece, stepped back to look at it, then set it on her work-table, took in the effect once more, drew a pleased sigh and resumed her seat. Her Diana-like, graceful form showed to advantage in the plain black dress, and her wavy blonde hair seemed to him specially beautiful in its contrast with her plain widow's cap. Youth with its health and hope had brought back the rounded outlines which at one time had been a little wasted by maternity and sorrow. Her white and singularly clear skin had resumed its soft roseate tint and could show as distinctly as ever the motions of the quickly-stirred blood. Her blue eyes, if not as gay as they were four years ago were more eloquent of experience, thought, and feeling. Mr. Colburne must be pardoned for thinking that she was more beautiful than the bouquet, and for wondering how she could prize a loveliness so much inferior in grace and expression to her own.