The Colonel,
however, saw very little of Elias or the stable-boys. Even his beloved
horses no longer interested him. He passed the days walking the streets of
Lexington, hoping by some chance to meet Miss Braxton, and it was not until
late at night that he returned to the race-track, foot-sore and
disappointed. He had been too deeply wounded and was too proud to make any
further effort to visit the Elms, and he thought it would be unmanly and
ungenerous to ask Miss Braxton to meet him away from her father's house.
In the mean time the old General's wrath increased as the days passed. He
was unused to any kind of opposition, and the Colonel's persistence
irritated him beyond measure. The dream of his life was a brilliant
marriage for his daughter, and no amount of argument could alter his
opinion that Colonel Bill was a rude, unlettered stable-man.
"Why, sir," he would exclaim, over a mint-julep, to his friend Major
Johnson, who always defended the Colonel vigorously, "the idea of such
attentions to my daughter is preposterous--ludicrous! I will not permit it,
sir--not for one moment. If he persists in annoying my family, sir," and
the purple hue of the General's face deepened, "I would no more hesitate to
shoot him--no more, by gad!--than I would a rattlesnake.
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