I’ve been too often under the fire of bright eyes to have any fear of them.”
“None so bright as hers.”
“Deuce take it! you make a fellow fall in love with this lady without having set eyes upon her.
She must be something extraordinary—incomparable.”
“She was both, when I last saw her.”
“How long ago was that?”
“The Lafourche ball?
Let me see—about eighteen months.
Just after we got back from Mexico.
She was then ‘coming out’ as society styles it:—
“A new star in the firmament, to light and glory born!”
“Eighteen months is a long time,” sagely remarked Crossman—“a long time for an unmarried maiden—especially among Creoles, where they often get spliced at twelve, instead of ‘sweet sixteen.’
Her beauty may have lost some of its bloom?”
“I believe not a bit.
I should have called to see; only I knew they were in the middle of their ‘plenishing,’ and mightn’t desire to be visited. But the major has been to Casa del Corvo, and brought back such a report about Miss Poindexter’s beauty as almost got him into a scrape with the lady commanding the post.”
“Upon my soul, Captain Sloman!” asseverated the lieutenant of dragoons, “you’ve excited my curiosity to such a degree, I feel already half in love with Louise Poindexter!”
“Before you get altogether into it,” rejoined the officer of infantry, in a serious tone, “let me recommend a little caution. There’s a bete noir in the background.”
“A brother, I suppose?
That is the individual usually so regarded.”
“There is a brother, but it’s not he.
A free noble young fellow he is—the only Poindexter I ever knew not eaten up with pride, he’s quite the reverse.”
“The aristocratic father, then?
Surely he wouldn’t object to a quartering with the Hancocks?”
“I’m not so sure of that; seeing that the Hancocks are Yankees, and he’s a chivalric Southerner!
But it’s not old Poindexter I mean.”
“Who, then, is the black beast, or what is it—if not a human?”
“It is human, after a fashion. A male cousin—a queer card he is—by name Cassius Calhoun.”
“I think I’ve heard the name.”
“So have I,” said the lieutenant of rifles.
“So has almost everybody who had anything to do with the Mexican war—that is, who took part in Scott’s campaign.
He figured there extensively, and not very creditably either.
He was captain in a volunteer regiment of Mississippians—for he hails from that State; but he was oftener met with at the monte-table than in the quarters of his regiment.
He had one or two affairs, that gave him the reputation of a bully. But that notoriety was not of Mexican-war origin. He had earned it before going there; and was well known among the desperadoes of New Orleans as a dangerous man.”
“What of all that?” asked the young dragoon, in a tone slightly savouring of defiance. “Who cares whether Mr Cassius Calhoun be a dangerous man, or a harmless one?
Not I.
He’s only the girl’s cousin, you say?”
“Something more, perhaps.
I have reason to think he’s her lover.”
“Accepted, do you suppose?”
“That I can’t tell.
I only know, or suspect, that he’s the favourite of the father.
I have heard reasons why; given only in whispers, it is true, but too probable to be scouted.
The old story—influence springing from mortgage money.
Poindexter’s not so rich as he has been—else we’d never have seen him out here.”
“If the lady be as attractive as you say, I suppose we’ll have Captain Cassius out here also, before long?”
“Before long!
Is that all you know about it?
He is here; came along with the family, and is now residing with them.
Some say he’s a partner in the planting speculation.
I saw him this very morning—down in the hotel bar-room—‘liquoring up,’ and swaggering in his old way.”