Those pleasant days of late summer and early autumn were a halcyon time to Paul and Lucie, and to Toni and Denise. Toni was troubled with no qualms, whatever, with regard to Denise’s superiority to him, and the fact that she might justly aspire to something far beyond a private soldier. He was the Toni of old, and, like the great Napoleon, he reckoned that if he wanted a thing, it was his already; and, instead of shrinking from the idea of Denise’s impressive fortune of ten thousand francs, he was glad she had so much, and wished that it was more—not that he meant to squander it or that he loved Denise for it. He would have loved her just as well without a franc. Nor did he love her any better for having it, but he did not consider that the ten thousand francs placed any barrier between Denise and himself. And then from the first moment their eyes had met on the night of the ball in the public square, that old, sweet feeling of being cared for and protected by Denise had stolen into his heart. Toni wanted a wife to protect him from other people and from himself—that was the long and short of it. As for Denise, her nature had shaped itself to the idea of looking after Toni and she wanted to give him all the buns and good things in life. With Paul and Lucie this was exactly reversed. Lucie felt the most charming sense of protection in Paul’s strong arm and strong sense.
Toni courted Denise assiduously, and did the same by Mademoiselle Duval and the sergeant, and succeeded, in the course of time, in winning a grudging respect from the sergeant. That stern warrior knew too much about Toni’s boyhood to accept him at his own value, but his perfect knowledge of the voltige was an irresistible recommendation to the sergeant, and moreover, there was no denying that Toni was a good soldier, attentive to his duty. He had not once been punished since he had joined; and this was a remarkable record even for the best of soldiers. Then Toni stood well with his sublieutenant. This counted for something with the sergeant; nevertheless, he remembered how, in the old days at Bienville, Toni’s black shock and Paul Verney’s blond head were often close together, and these youthful friendships have a strong hold on many men. Still, Paul Verney was not the man to overlook the sins of a conscript, and the sergeant was forced to admit that no fault could be found with Toni so far.
He had begun by suspecting Toni’s intentions toward Denise, but his suspicions had been completely lulled to sleep, chiefly by Denise herself. This young person, who rarely raised her eyes from the ground and might have posed for a statue of Simplicity, knew perfectly well how to throw dust in the sergeant’s eyes. Concerning Toni, she never allowed him to be mentioned without some disparaging remark, such as, “That ridiculous Toni,” or “That absurd creature.” She called attention to the fact, which everybody knew, that Toni’s nose was a snub. She also observed, what nobody else had, that Toni slouched when he walked and was very ugly. Toni, in truth, was the most graceful fellow in the regiment, and handsome in his black-eyed, black-browed way. Denise would scarcely admit that Toni knew how to ride, but even this did not put the sergeant on his guard. She openly complained that Toni did not know how to dance and waltzed all over her feet when he danced with her in the evenings in the public square. When in her father’s presence, and Toni was there, Denise treated him like a dog. He was the only person living to whom she had ever shown any active hostility, but the mild, the gentle Denise would take him up on the smallest provocation, yawned at his jokes, laughed when he told of his discomforts and contradicted most of his assertions.
Mademoiselle Duval, who had become a great friend of Toni’s, lectured Denise on this, and even the sergeant told her that he thought she was rather hard on poor Toni. At this Denise shrugged her shoulders.
“He’s such a bore,” she said. “I always recollect him as a dirty, greedy little boy at Bienville. I believe he is just the same.”
Now, Toni certainly showed neither of those traits at present, but Denise would not allow a word to be said in his favor. Toni, however, strange to say, did not appear to be discomposed by this conduct of Denise’s, but joined the Duval party two or three times a week when they sat, on the pleasant evenings, in the public square listening to the music; and invariably asked Denise to dance with him. He even had the assurance, when it grew cool in the autumn evenings, to come to their lodgings, and it was here that Denise’s neglect of him inspired the sergeant to remonstrate with her.
Toni had the superlative impudence even to bring an occasional bag of roasted chestnuts or some little cakes to Denise, for Toni was a connoisseur in cakes, but she invariably declared that they were very bad of their kind. This same Denise, when she and Toni danced together, would whisper in his ear, “Be sure and ask me to dance at least twice more,” or, tripping along the street, would meet him and, lifting her pretty eyes to him, would say, “Toni, when are you coming to see us again?”—but such is the nature of woman.
Early in September Madame Marcel arranged to come to pay Toni a visit, as Toni could not go to see her, and Toni engaged a lodging for her in the same house where Mademoiselle Duval and Denise lodged.
“What do you think, aunt?” cried Denise, on learning this from the landlady, “that impudent Toni has dared to engage a room for his mother on the same floor with us.”
The sergeant happened to be present. He had grateful recollections of Madame Marcel, the neatness of her shop and the thriving trade she had, as well as that lady’s personal charms.
“Denise,” said he, “you gibe at Toni entirely too much, and as for his mother, a most estimable woman is Madame Marcel, and an old friend and neighbor, and I desire that you treat her with politeness.”
“Certainly I shall, papa,” replied Denise, “but as for that odious Toni, you know I can’t stand him.”
“You will have to stand him,” replied the sergeant tartly. “He is a good soldier and seems to have reformed completely, and you must show him some respect while his mother is here at least. Do you understand me, Denise?”
Denise understood him perfectly, only the sergeant did not in the least understand Denise.
It was on an early autumn afternoon that Toni met his mother in the third-class waiting-room at the station. When he took her in his arms he felt himself a little boy again. Madame Marcel was not much changed, except that her hair, of a satin blackness like Toni’s when he had last seen her, was now amply streaked with gray.
“Mama, Mama!” cried Toni, kissing her, while the big tears ran down his cheeks, “your hair is gray and it is I who have done it.”
“No, no, Toni,” cried Madame Marcel, who was kissing him all over his face, and, who, like most mothers, was unwilling to admit that the prodigal had been at fault, “your mother is growing old, my son; that is it.”
She was still handsome, though, and very well dressed in her black bonnet and silk mantle, and looked quite the lady. Toni felt proud of her as he escorted her through the street, carrying her bags and parcels on his arm; and Madame Marcel felt proud of her handsome young soldier with his trim uniform, for Toni, under the guidance and recommendation of his corporal, had developed into a model of soldierly smartness in dress. Toni showed his mother up stairs into the neat room he had engaged for her, and Madame Marcel stowed away the provisions she had brought for herself and Toni, being a thoughtful soul. Then Toni sat in his mother’s lap, as he had done when he was a little boy, and told her everything that had happened to him, except about Nicolas and Pierre. He was trying to oust those two villains from his mind and to shut the door on that terrible secret that he shared with them. He told his mother about Denise and Mademoiselle Duval; and Madame Marcel, knowing Denise to be the most correct of young girls, with ten thousand francs as her fortune, rejoiced that Toni had fallen in love with her, for it was clearly impossible that Denise, or any other girl, could resist her Toni, now that he was clean and was doing his duty.
After a while, a tap came at the door, and when Toni opened it, there stood the sergeant, got up as if he were on dress parade under the eye of the general himself, his mustaches beautifully waxed, not only waxed but flagrantly dyed a shining black. He greeted Madame Marcel with effusion, and then said:
“I came to request that Madame Marcel will have supper with us to-night. She has not yet made her arrangements, perhaps, and my sister and my daughter will be most pleased. I am sorry, Toni, that I can not ask you, but you are due at the barracks.”
“The sergeant, got up as if he were on dress parade.”
It struck Toni that this was a scheme for getting him out of the way. He saw something in the sergeant’s eye which indicated a very deep interest in Madame Marcel, and then recollection came surging over Toni of the proposition which the sergeant had made some few years before, to marry Madame Marcel for the purpose of thrashing the little boy who hid trembling under the counter. Toni was too big to thrash now, but the sergeant always appeared to him to be about nine feet high. Toni did not approve of the match in the concrete, but in the abstract, as the sergeant’s advances to Madame Marcel might result to the advantage of Toni and Denise, Toni determined to encourage him. He felt sure that his mother, like most mothers, was more in love with him than with any other man, and would hardly dare jilt him for the finest sergeant in the French army. So Toni, on his way to the barracks, turned over things in his mind, and determined to forward the sergeant’s suit up to a certain point.
Things turned out very much as Toni had anticipated. The sergeant had reached that time of life when he began to look forward to his retirement. He had saved up something and, by his sister’s thrift and generosity, Denise was provided for, but the idea of Madame Marcel’s large, warm, cheerful kitchen in winter, and shady garden in summer would be extremely attractive to a retired sergeant on half-pay. And Madame Marcel was extremely comely, there was no doubt about that, and not given to scolding like Mademoiselle Duval.
As for Madame Marcel, she saw through the sergeant in forty-eight hours, and what she did not see Toni enlightened her upon.
“Mama,” said he, some days after, when the two were in the privacy of Madame Marcel’s room, “I think Sergeant Duval wants to marry you.”
For answer, Madame Marcel blushed up to her eyes and replied:
“For shame, Toni. I have no idea of marrying again.”
“I didn’t say you had,” replied the wily Toni. “I said the sergeant wants to marry you, or, rather, I think he wants to marry the shop. But he doesn’t want to marry me—I am too big to thrash. But, Mama,” he continued, coming up to her and putting his arm around her waist, a species of love-making which mothers adore, “you mustn’t throw the sergeant down too hard; at least, not for the present; because I—I”—here Toni blushed more than his mother and grinned bashfully, “because I want to marry Denise. I never told you this before.”
“There was no need to, Toni,” replied his mother, laughing, “I have seen it ever since you were ten years old, and I think Denise wants to marry you.”
At this Toni’s black eyes danced.
“I think so, too,” he said, with his own inimitable naïvete. “For all she is so bashful she has told me so a great many times, with her eyes, that is.”
“And it would be an excellent match for you, Toni,” replied his mother. “Denise is so orderly, so neat, and such a good manager, and after you have served your term and come back to Bienville, I will take you and Denise with me into the shop.”
“I can do better than that,” cried Toni. “I can be instructor in a riding-school and get three hundred francs the month, and then you can sell the shop and come and live with Denise and me.”
Madame Marcel was too sensible a woman to accept this arrangement beforehand, but replied prudently:
“Very well, if you can make three hundred francs the month, you and Denise can go and live in Paris and I will visit you twice a year, it would hardly be safe for me to give up the shop.”
“But we should be afraid to leave you there,” said Toni roguishly, chucking his mother under the chin, “with the sergeant just across the way, for he will be retired just as my time is up. You and he might elope some fine day, and then come and fall down on your knees and humbly beg my pardon.”
“I certainly shall if I elope,” replied Madame Marcel, smiling.
“The sergeant is hard hit,” continued Toni. “Let me see, you had supper with them the evening you came—that was Thursday. Then, the next morning the sergeant sent you in a melon for your breakfast, and in the afternoon, when you were sitting in the public square, he joined you. I saw him sitting on the bench beside you, but he sneaked off as soon as he saw me coming—that was Friday. Then Friday evening he put Denise up to asking you to take a walk, and you fell in with him, so Denise tells me, and he walked home with you. And to-day—”
Just then, a tap came at the door, and the sergeant, with his beautifully waxed and dyed mustaches appeared. He carried in his hand a large nosegay, and without seeing Toni, bowed low to Madame Marcel and said:
“Madame, will you honor me by accepting this little offering?”
Madame Marcel advanced, smiling, and accepted the nosegay shyly. Toni, meanwhile, had slipped behind a screen which concealed the stove.
“How very charming you are looking to-day, Madame. No one would dream that you had a son as old as Toni. You should represent him as your younger brother,” said the sergeant gallantly and quite unaware of Toni behind the screen.
For all Madame Marcel declared she never meant to marry again, nevertheless, she was a woman, and the sergeant’s compliments tickled her agreeably, so she smiled coyly at this and declared she looked a hundred.
“Nonsense,” cried the sergeant, “you don’t look more than twenty-five. And, by the way, Madame, my sister and my daughter are making up a party for to-morrow—I am off duty for the whole afternoon—and we should be very much pleased if you would join us in a little excursion by the tramway to a very pleasant place about two miles from here, in the country. There is an inn with a garden, and we can take our luncheon with us and order the wine from the inn. We shall start at five o’clock, and we shall hope to have the pleasure of your charming company.”
That was too much for Toni. He suddenly emerged from behind the screen and said, grasping the sergeant’s hand with effusion:
“Thank you, thank you, Sergeant, so much. We will accept with pleasure. I think I can get off, too, by applying to Lieutenant Verney.”
The sergeant scowled at Toni. Here was a pretty kettle of fish. He had no notion of having him with their party, but there was now no help for it. The prospect was charming for Toni. The sergeant, he felt sure, would devote himself to Madame Marcel, and then Toni and Denise would be left to themselves—only, what was to become of Mademoiselle Duval? Toni knew the Golden Lion well, also its garden, and orchard, and it was full of little sequestered places where he might have a quiet word with Denise except for Mademoiselle Duval. But Toni was a strategist of no mean order, and if he once got Denise in the garden of the Golden Lion he thought he could see her for a few minutes alone. So the party was made up for the next day if the weather should permit. Toni, too, could get off after parade, which was at four o’clock, and everything seemed most auspicious, except concerning Mademoiselle Duval.
As Toni walked his beat that night, for he was doing sentry duty, he began to turn over in his mind various plans by which he could get rid of his prospective aunt-in-law, and suddenly a brilliant idea came to him. He knew Mademoiselle Duval was mortally afraid of snakes. It is true it was hardly the season for snakes, being the middle of September, but this would make no difference to Mademoiselle Duval, who shuddered even in January at the thought of a snake. Toni, therefore, laid his plans, and the next morning he contrived to get off for an hour and went to Mademoiselle Duval’s lodgings.
Denise was out, and Mademoiselle Duval was reading the weekly religious newspaper, which was her sole literary recreation.
“Mademoiselle,” said Toni, in a low voice, so that his mother, on the same floor, might not hear him, “this afternoon, I believe, we are all to go for an excursion to the Golden Lion and have tea in the garden. I want to ask you, as a favor, not to mention to my mother that the place is full of snakes of all sorts. I have been there often, and I have never gone in my life that I did not see a snake, and sometimes half a dozen, in that garden. They are not at all dangerous, but if my mother saw one it would alarm her so much, and I don’t wish her to know that there are any to be seen.”
“Aw—aw—aw!” Mademoiselle Duval shrieked. “You may take your mother if you like, Toni, but nothing on earth would induce me to go.”
Toni could have hugged her on the spot, but he began to urge her.
“Pray, Mademoiselle, don’t think of remaining behind. The snakes are perfectly harmless, I assure you. Most of them are the little green garter snakes that are as harmless as the garter you wear around your leg.”
This speech caused Mademoiselle Duval to blush, and she said sternly:
“Toni, your language and allusion are most improper. At all events, I am resolved not to go to the Golden Lion this afternoon.”
“It will annoy the sergeant very much if you don’t go, and if he knows that it is on account of a few little garter snakes he will laugh at you for the rest of your life, particularly as it is now September and they are not very active.”
“My brother may laugh at me as much as he likes,” replied Mademoiselle Duval, privately resolving not to give the sergeant the chance. “I simply shall not go. Perhaps I may make some excuse to keep my brother and Denise from urging me, but I shall not go—of that you may be sure—and I think you are a most undutiful son to take your mother to any such place. As for my brother and Denise, they go about as if there were no such things as snakes in the world.”
