Lillie looked grateful and wishful, as though she would have liked a guard; but the Doctor answered, "Oh, perfectly safe, as far as concerns that fellow. He ran off too much frightened to attempt any thing more at present. So much obliged to you!"
Nevertheless, a patrol of the Tenth Barataria did arrive in the vicinity of the Ravenel mansion during the night, and scoured the streets till daybreak, arresting every man who carried a cane and could not give a good account of himself. In a general way, New Orleans was a safer place in these times than it had been before since it was a village. I may as well say here that the perpetrator of this assault was not discovered, and that the adventure had no results except a day or two of headache to the Doctor, and a considerable progress in the conversion of Miss Ravenel from the doctrine of state sovereignty. Women, especially warm-hearted women offended in the persons of those whom they love, are so terribly illogical! If Mr. Secretary Seward, with all his constitutional lore and persuasive eloquence, had argued with her for three weeks, he could not have converted her; but the moment a southern ruffian knocked her father on the head, she began to see that secession was indefensible, and that the American Union ought to be preserved.
"It was a mere sporadic outbreak of our local light-heartedness," observed Ravenel, speaking of the outrage. "The man had no designs—no permanent malice. He merely took advantage of a charming opportunity. He saw a loyal head within reach of his bludgeon, and he instinctively made a clutch at it. The finest gentlemen of the city would have done as much under the same temptation."
CHAPTER XII. COLONEL CARTER BEFRIENDS THE RAVENELS.
Captain Colburne indulged in a natural expectation that the kiss which he had laid on Miss Ravenel's hand would draw him nearer to her and render their relations more sentimentally sympathetic. He did not base his hopes, however, on the impression produced by the mere physical contact of the salute; he had such an exalted opinion of the young lady's spiritual purity that he never thought of believing that she could be influenced by any simply carnal impulses, however innocent; and furthermore he was himself in a too exalted and seraphic state of feeling to attach much importance to the mere motion of the blood and thrillings of the spinal marrow. But he did think, in an unreasoning, blindly longing way, that the fact of his having kissed her once was good reason for hoping that he might some day kiss her again, and be permitted to love her without exciting her anger, and possibly even gain the wondrous boon of being loved by her. Notwithstanding his practical New England education, and his individual sensitiveness at the idea of doing or so much as meditating any thing ridiculous, he drifted into certain reveries of conceivable interviews with the young lady, wherein she and he gradually and sweetly approxinated until matrimony seemed to be the only natural conclusion. But the next time he called at the Ravenel house, he found Mrs. Larue there, and, what was worse, Colonel Carter. Lillie remembered the kiss, to be sure, and blushed at the sight of the giver; but she preserved her self-possession in all other respects, and was evidently not a charmed victim. I think I am able to assure the reader that in her head the osculation had given birth to no reveries. It is true that for a moment it had startled her greatly, and seemed to awaken in her some mighty and mysterious influence. But it is also true that she was half angry at him for troubling her spiritual nature so potently, and that on the whole he had not advanced himself a single step in her affections by his audacity. If any thing, she treated him with more reserve and kept him at a greater distance than before.
Mrs. Larue did her best to make up for the indifference of Lillie, and to reward Colburne, not so much for his friendly offices of the evening previous, as for his other and in her eyes much greater merits of being young and handsome. The best that the widow could offer, however, was little to the Captain; indeed had she laid her heart, hand and fortune at his feet he would only have been embarrassed by the unacceptable benificence; and he was even somewhat alarmed at the dangerous glitter of her eyes and freedom of her conversation. It must be understood here that Madame's devotion to him, fervent as it seemed, was not whole-hearted. She would have preferred to harness the Colonel into her triumphal chariot, and had only given up that idea after a series of ineffectual efforts. Some men can be driven by a cunning hand through flirtations which they do not enjoy, just as a spiritless horse can be held down and touched up, to a creditable trot; but Carter was not a nag to be managed in this way, being too experienced and selfish, too willful by nature and too much accustomed to domineer, to allow himself to be guided by a jockey whom he did not fancy. Could she have got at him alone and often enough she might perhaps have broken him in; for she knew of certain secret methods of rareyizing gentlemen which hardly ever fail upon persons of Carter's physical and moral nature; but thus far she had found neither the time nor the juxtaposition necessary to a trial of her system. Accordingly she had been obliged to admit, and make the best of, the fact that he was resolved to do the most of his talking with Miss Ravenel. Leave the two alone she could not, according to New Orleans ideas of propriety, and so was compelled for a time to play what might be called a footman's part in conversation, standing behind and listening. It was a pleasant relief from this experience to take the ribbons in her own hands and drive the tractable though reluctant Colburne. While the Colonel and Lillie talked in the parlor, the Captain and Mrs. Larue held long dialogues in the balcony. He let her have the major part of these conversations because she liked it, because he felt no particular spirit for it, and because as a listener he could glance oftener at Miss Ravenel. Although a younger man than Carter and a handsomer one, he never thought to outshine him, or, in common parlance, to cut him out; holding him in too high respect as a superior officer, and looking up to him also with that deference which most homebred, unvitiated youth accord to mature worldlings. The innocent country lad bows to the courtly roué because he perceives his polish and does not suspect his corruption. Captain Colburne and Miss Ravenel were similarly innocent and juvenile in their worshipful appreciation of Colonel Carter. The only difference was that the former, being a man, made no secret of his admiration, while the latter, being a marriageable young lady, covered hers under a mask of playful raillery.
"Are you not ashamed," she said, "to let me catch you tyrannizing over my native city?"
"Don't mention it. Havn't the heart to go on much longer. I'll resign the mayoralty to-day if you will accept it."
"Offer it to my father, and see if I don't accept for him."