He immediately changed his manner of conversation with a painful consciousness that she had as good as ordered him to do so.
"Oh! I have no sort of compunction about turning the South into a desert," he said, with a poor attempt at making merry. "I mean to take a bag of salt with me, and sow all Louisiana with it."
And the rest of the dialogue, until he left her at the door of the hotel, was conducted in the same style of laborious and painful trifling.
As the day approached for the sailing of the regiment, Colburne looked forward with dread yet with eagerness to the last interview. At times he thought and hoped and almost expected that it would bring about some decisive expression of feeling which should give a desirable direction to the perverse heart of this inexplicable young lady. Then he reflected during certain flashes of pure reason, how foolish, how cruel it would be to win her affection only to quit her on the instant, certainly for months, probably for years, perhaps for ever. Moreover, suppose he should lose a leg or a nose in his first battle, how could he demand that she should keep her vows, and yet how could he give her up? But these last interviews are frequently unsatisfactory; and the one which Colburne excitedly anticipated was eminently so. It took place in the public parlor of the hotel; the Doctor was present, and so were several dowager boarders. The regiment had marched through the city in the afternoon, surrounded and cheered by crowds of enthusiastic citizens, and was already on board of the coasting steamer which would transfer it to the ocean transport at New York. Colburne had obtained permission to remain in New Boston until the evening through train from the east.
"This is a proud day for you," said the warm-hearted Doctor. "But I must say that it is a sad one for me. I am truly grieved to think how long it may be before we shall see you again."
"I hope not very long," answered the young man with a gravity and sadness which did not consort with his words.
He was pale, nervous and feverish, partly from lack of sleep the night before.
"I really think it will not be very long," he repeated after a moment.
Now that peace was apparently his only chance of returning to Miss Ravenel, he longed for it, and like most young people he could muster confidence to believe in what he hoped. Moreover it was at this time a matter of northern faith that the contest could not last a year; that the great army which was being drilled and disciplined on the banks of the Potomac would prove irresistible when it should take the field; that McClellan would find no difficulty in trampling out the life of the rebellion. Colonel Carter, Doctor Ravenel and a few obstinate old hunker democrats were the only persons in the little State of Barataria who did not give way to this popular conviction.
"Where are you going, Mr. Colburne?" asked Lillie eagerly.