Chapter 23 — the Colonel; the races; the dinner

Edna's father, "the Colonel," arrives at Esplanade Street on his way to Sister Janet's wedding in the East. He is austere, vain, opinionated, an old Confederate of Kentucky who reads the Presbyterian service with the gloom that, even in Edna's girlhood, would chill her on Sunday mornings. He is also good company in his own way. He compounds toddies. He has opinions about everything. He flirts decorously with Mademoiselle Reisz when Edna brings him, briefly, to her apartment. Edna finds him a livelier presence in the house than her husband.

He takes her to the races. He is a sound judge of horseflesh. Edna, who as a girl rode hard on her father's plantation, takes to the track at once. Alcée Arobin and the Highcamps are there. Arobin is introduced. He is well-dressed, charming, slightly menacing in the way the man-about-town is in fiction of this period. Edna picks her horses with intuition; she wins. The Colonel is delighted. Arobin is interested. The whole party comes back to Esplanade Street excited, electric, talking horses for an hour over a small supper.

That evening — separately arranged — Doctor Mandelet comes to dinner. The doctor observes Edna across the table. She is lit up, sharp, witty, present in the room as he has not seen her since her marriage. The doctor recognizes the quality at once. She is in love. Whether with whom is the question. Léonce, Mandelet sees, is not the cause; the doctor observes the husband and dismisses him. The Colonel is being amusing. Edna is glowing. The doctor goes home, half reassured (she is not ill) and half worried (she is in love and the husband does not know it). The chapter is the only place in the novel where any character correctly diagnoses Edna's condition. The doctor decides not to act on the diagnosis.