Toni returned to the barracks confident of victory, and was not at all
surprised when, at five o'clock, he met his mother and the sergeant
and Denise at the tram station, to find that Mademoiselle Duval had a
raging headache and was compelled to remain at home. The sergeant, too,
rather liked the arrangement, except that he was afraid that Denise
would not be sufficiently polite to Toni. So, on their way to the
rendezvous he had warned her.
"Now, Denise," he said, "I won't have you running away from Toni and
treating him like a dog before his mother this afternoon. You have got
to be civil to him."
"Yes, papa," answered Denise, with the air of a martyr, "I suppose I
shall have to be civil to him before his mother, but Toni really bores
me dreadfully." Oh! Denise, what a story-teller you are!
When they got on the tram it was so crowded that it was impossible for
the party to get seats together, so Denise, making a pretty grimace on
the sly at her father, went and sat with Toni quite at the end of the
car, and out of sight of her father and Toni's mother, and her first
speech, whispered softly in his ear, was:
"Oh, Toni, how nice it is to be together like this."
Toni answered not one word, but he looked at Denise with his whole soul
shining out of his lustrous black eyes, and Denise thought him the
finest young soldier in the world.
It was a warm September afternoon, and their road lay through the
beautiful valley of the Seine. There were many family parties on the
tram, and when they reached the Golden Lion the large garden and even
the orchard beyond were full of tables at which people were eating
and drinking. There were plenty of soldiers about, and some of Toni's
comrades would have been very much pleased at an introduction to the
sergeant's pretty daughter, but the sergeant would not oblige them,
neither would Toni. The party seated themselves at a table under an
acacia tree, which reminded Toni and Denise of that other acacia tree
at Bienville under which they had sat and munched and loved in their
childhood. Madame Marcel unpacked their lunch basket and they ordered
wine and tea from the inn and proceeded to enjoy themselves. Under
the combined influence of wine and woman the sergeant grew positively
lover-like, and, when their tea was over and they got up to walk about
the garden, he very soon managed to have Madame Marcel to himself. He
was quite unconscious of being assisted in his manoeuvers by Toni and
Denise and Madame herself, who had a very good mind to give Toni all
possible chances with Denise and her ten thousand francs. So presently
Toni found himself alone with Denise in a little nook in the orchard,
behind a great clump of dwarf plum trees. The soft light of evening was
about them, the air was hushed and the stillness was only broken by
the faint and distant sounds of merriment. All the world seemed fair
and beautiful and peaceful, and the fairest thing of all to Toni was
the blue heaven of Denise's eyes. She wore a pretty blue gown, and a
jaunty black hat upon her blond hair. Her eyes, which were as blue as
her gown, were usually downcast, but were now upturned to Toni quite
frankly. She had loved Toni as long as he had loved her--indeed, the
world without Toni had seemed to her quite an impossible place. He said
softly to her:
"Denise, in all those seven years that I did not see you did you ever
think of me?"
"Yes," replied Denise. She said this with a simple sincerity that went
to Toni's heart.
"You know every time I wrote to my mother I always put the most
important line at the bottom--my love to D. She knew what I meant."
"Yes," said Denise, with a little gasp of pleasure, "she always gave me
your message."
"I always felt that sometime or other we should be Denise and Toni as
we had been when you were a dear little girl and I was a dirty bad
little boy. And Denise, I swear to you, whatever I have done wrong in
my life, I have been true to you. I never told any other girl that I
loved her, because I never loved any other girl. I took my fling with
them, but in every girl I ever saw in my life it seemed to me that I
saw something of you, Denise. You need not think that women in the
circus are bad just because they are in the circus. There are plenty
of them that are just as good in their way as--as Mademoiselle Duval
is in hers. They don't take a religious newspaper, but they stand by
each other in their troubles. They help with each other's children and
when a woman's husband gives her a black eye all the other women fly
at him and help to abuse him. Oh, Denise, I think women are very good,
and the worst of them is too good for the best of men. Denise, I am not
half good enough for you, but I want you to marry me as soon as my time
is up. I can get off with one year's service if I escape punishments,
and that I have done and mean to do, for your sake, Denise." He took
Denise's hand in his--their eyes met and then their lips. A bird in the
plum tree above began cooing softly to its mate. The bird seemed, like
Toni and Denise, to think the earth was Heaven.
Their love-making was very simple, as were their natures and their
lives; they were only a private soldier and a sergeant's daughter, but
they loved each other well and asked nothing better of life than love.
Meanwhile things had not been progressing so favorably with Sergeant
Duval and Madame Marcel. The sergeant had been a little too vigorous in
his wooing and Madame Marcel, who simply had Toni's advantage in view,
felt called on to repress her lover. The sergeant, who had a big voice
in his big frame, had made his wishes concerning his future with Madame
Marcel quite audible to all the people surrounding them. Everybody had
heard him say:
"Now, Madame, you should think of changing your condition, really. The
cares of your shop are too many for you--a great deal too many."
"I have managed them for the past twenty years," replied Madame Marcel,
who thought herself better qualified to keep a candy shop than the
sergeant was, and who understood perfectly what the sergeant was
driving at.
"True," said the sergeant, floundering a little, "but a woman should
not stand alone--she is not able to do it--that's the truth. She is
being taken advantage of at every turn."
"And sometimes," calmly responded Madame Marcel, "the advantage is
on her side. I have managed, during my twenty years of widowhood to
accumulate a competence. Toni will not be badly off when I die, and
when he marries I mean to make him an allowance equal to the income
from his wife's dowry."
This seemed sinful waste to the sergeant, who thought Toni did not
deserve such generosity. That superfluity of which Madame Marcel spoke
he considered had much better be expended on a worthy veteran who
had served his country for more than thirty years, and who would like
extremely to end his days in affluence. But it was plain that Madame
Marcel had the best of him in the argument that a woman could not take
care of herself, so the sergeant changed his tactics.
"But it would be so much more comfortable for you, Madame, to have a
protector--a husband I mean. Toni will get married and go off, and that
will be the end of him." The sergeant snapped his fingers. "But a kind
and affectionate husband, a man of steady habits--"
"Most men of bad habits are very steady in those habits," replied
Madame Marcel. She was not a satirist and her remark was the more
telling because of her sincerity.
"You are right, Madame, but I mean a man of good habits, a man who
doesn't spend most of his time at the wine shops, who has some domestic
virtues. I believe, Madame, that the non-commissioned officers in the
French army are the finest body of men in the world for domestic life.
I never knew a sergeant, or a corporal either for that matter, who was
not a good husband."
"Then I couldn't go amiss if I should take any one of them," answered
Madame Marcel demurely. "There is a very nice man, a corporal lately
retired, who has bought out the cigar shop near me at Bienville. Gossip
has linked our names together, but I had not thought of marrying him."
"By no means should you marry him," cried the sergeant, realizing that
he had been too general in his commendations. "He is probably after
your shop and after that nice little competence, which, I judge from
your words, you have accumulated. No, Madame, you could aspire to a
sergeant--it would be sinful to throw yourself away on a corporal."
Madame Marcel smiled mysteriously, but a good many of the listeners
smiled quite openly, particularly a party of soldiers near them. One of
them behind Madame Marcel's back undertook to enact the part of Madame
Marcel while his comrade, mimicking every action of the sergeant's,
managed to convulse all who observed him as he followed this love
scene. The sergeant folded his arms, twirled his dyed mustaches, and
reflected. He had not made a single breach in the defense as yet. He
had heard that women were easily made jealous, so he concluded to try
it as a _ruse de guerre_.
"For my part," he said, "I have concluded at the end of my present term
of enlistment to marry and settle down. I may say to you, Madame, in
strict confidence, that I have considered the charms of Mademoiselle
Dumont, the dressmaker, whose establishment is a short way from yours,
Madame, at Bienville. She is a most estimable woman, of a suitable age,
and has given me some marks of encouragement--in fact, I believe it
was generally thought among our acquaintances, at the time of my last
visit to Bienville, that I should have proposed to Mademoiselle Dumont
before I left. My attentions, I admit, had been somewhat compromising.
I had sent her a large basket of figs, and, one day, when I went
fishing, I also sent her my whole catch, besides having taken her and
her sister on an excursion into the country, and having entertained
them handsomely. I thought, when I saw Mademoiselle Dumont for the
last time, that she seemed a little piqued, and I have reason to know
that she reckons herself rather ill-treated by me; but it is by no
means unlikely that on my return next summer I shall offer my hand to
Mademoiselle Dumont."
"Perhaps you have not heard," remarked Madame Marcel sweetly, "that
Mademoiselle Dumont was married about two months ago to Hermann, the
Swiss violinist, who taught Toni to play the violin."
This was a facer for the sergeant, but he carried it off better than
could be expected.
"So she married Hermann, the fiddler?--a Swiss fiddler! Then she was
more chagrined than I supposed. I suspected she would do something
rash if I went away without proposing. Poor, poor creature! As for
Hermann's teaching your Toni to play the violin, why Madame, Toni could
no more play the fiddle than he can command the regiment. Very well!
Mademoiselle Dumont would have been no match for a sergeant. I am glad
now that I did not propose to her, as she certainly expected me to do.
She is much better matched with a Swiss fiddler than with a sergeant
who has seen service for more than thirty years."
The sergeant eyed Madame Marcel closely. Was it possible that this
demure and correct person, in her neat black bonnet and graceful
mantle, was poking fun at him?--Sergeant Duval, of the dragoons! But
Madame Marcel looked so innocent that it was impossible to fathom her;
and just then Toni and Denise appeared on the scene. The instant
Madame Marcel's maternal eye fell upon Toni, she knew that something
had happened, and that that something was good. And presently it was
time to go home, and they all journeyed back to Beaupré. They walked to
their lodgings together through the soft purple twilight of September.
Toni went with his mother to her room, and, taking her in his arms,
poured out his heart to her. His mother kissed him and shed a few tears
as mothers will do under those circumstances. And then Toni had to run
for the barracks as hard as he could.
About nine o'clock, when he was through with his stable work and was
standing in the barrack square, he saw Paul Verney passing by. Toni
stood at attention, with such a look on his face that Paul Verney
stopped and spoke to him.
"What do you want, _mon enfant_?" he said, after that pleasant form of
address with which the officers speak to their soldiers.
"To see you, sir, in private, for a little while," answered Toni under
his breath.
"Very well, then, come to my quarters at half-past nine."
[Illustration: "Was it possible that this demure and correct person ...
was poking fun at him?"]
So at half-past nine Toni presented himself at Paul's quarters. It
never seemed to them to be at all strange that Paul should be sitting
at his ease, smoking, in the chair before his writing-desk, while Toni
stood stiffly at attention. The sympathy which bound them was too close
for those trifling distinctions to count, and between the officer
sitting and the soldier standing it was still Paul and Toni in private.
Paul was smoking now, and on his desk, under the green-shaded lamp, lay
a pretty little note. He was composing an answer to it with as much
care and precision as if it were a report to the Minister of War. The
light of the lamp fell on his blond head and fairish complexion.
As Paul looked at Toni, he could not but think how Toni was improved
by being made into a soldier. He was certainly the best looking young
fellow in Paul's troop.
"Well, Toni," said Paul, "out with it. I saw you on the tram to-day
with Denise."
Toni turned red under his tan and sunburn. His mouth came open in a
delighted grin, showing every one of the large, white teeth. He brought
his straight, black brows together and said, in that tone of intimacy
which carried the officer and the soldier back to the days when they
belonged to the great democracy of boys and huddled together in the
nook on the old bridge at Bienville:
"Denise loves me." He did not think it necessary to say how much he
loved Denise. Paul rose, and, putting both hands on Toni's shoulders,
gave him a vigorous shake of affection.
"I am deuced glad to hear it," he said. "If you don't behave yourself
to that sweet girl after you are married I promise you the handsomest
drubbing you ever had in your life. What do you think the sergeant will
say?"
"God knows!" said Toni, dolefully shaking his head. "I think he wants
to marry my mother, or marry the shop, that is. You see his term is
up, sir, next year. But I don't think my mother wants to marry him or
anybody else."
"But would it be a good thing if the sergeant thought it would help his
chances with your mother if he agreed to let you have Denise?" asked
Paul, who was usually the soul of candor, but who, like all men, was
Machiavellian in love matters.
"That it would, sir," answered Toni.
"Very well," said Paul, grinning sympathetically at Toni, "I shall
speak to the sergeant myself about you. Unluckily the sergeant knows
us both too well--he used to see us when we were boys together at
Bienville. Still, you have been a good soldier, Toni, and I don't think
anything can be said against you."
"Except--except--" here Toni's eyes grew wide and bright with fear,
"except about Nicolas and Pierre."
"I hope we shall never see or hear anything more of those two
rapscallions again," replied Paul, "and, at all events, it is not worth
while to say anything about that part of your life. Toni, you are, in
some respects, the greatest coward I ever saw."
"I know," answered Toni frankly. "I always was, you remember. I can't
help it. But, at least, I am not afraid of horses, nor of guns, nor of
fighting, if an officer will only stand by me and look at me very hard."
Paul sat down at the desk and fingered the little note to which he was
composing a reply. He began to reflect how much better off Toni was
than himself. Toni was not held back from the girl of his choice by
any consciousness of inequality in worldly position, although a girl
of Denise's beauty, merit and fortune might certainly look higher than
Toni. But Lucie Bernard--when Paul thought of her millions of francs,
her beauty, and then saw himself, a sublieutenant of dragoons, the son
of a middle-class advocate at Bienville, his heart was like lead in his
breast.
"Toni," said he presently, "do you remember how Mademoiselle Lucie
Bernard used to look in the old days at Bienville?"
"Perfectly," cried Toni. "Don't I remember the day that she talked
with you in the park when I showed you where she was, and when Madame
Ravenel fainted, didn't I tell you so you could bring the water in your
cap? Oh, I remember Mademoiselle Lucie well. She was the prettiest
little lady and she is just the same now. I have seen her several times
since I have been here and she always smiles and nods at me so sweetly."
Paul could not confide so frankly in Toni as Toni had confided in him,
but, nevertheless, they understood each other without any more words.
Paul sat and frowned and looked at his note.
"Ah, Toni," he said, "this world is full of thorns for a sublieutenant
of dragoons without any fortune. You may go now."
Toni went toward the door but paused, with the knob in his hand. "I
think," he whispered, "you will soon be as happy as I am," and then he
vanished through the door and went clattering down the corridor.