Toni

“ In place of their gaiety and laughter a deep and solemn happiness possessed Toni as well as Denise, except for this terrible fear, black and threatening, which would not be thrust out of his happiest hours.
Paris in June for a pair of lovers on a honeymoon trip, with enough money to meet their modest wants, is an earthly Paradise. ”

“ Paul very much hoped that they would reach the limit and have to be sent to Algiers as disciplinaires.
Toni went about like a man in a dream. Part of the time he was the happiest fellow alive, and part of the time the most miserable. In his happiest moments with Denise, he was haunted by a dread of what Nicolas and Pierre might do, and in his paroxysms of fear, when he waked in the night and lay still and trembling amid the snoring troopers around him in the barracks, the thought of Denise comforted him. ”

“ When the circus tent caught fire in the midst of a crowded performance, Toni was the calmest and most self-possessed person there, and careered around the ring doing his specialty, a wonderful vaulting and tumbling act, while the canvas roof overhead was blazing and no one but himself saw it. When the bridge broke through, with the circus train upon it, Toni was the first man to pull off his clothes and jump into the water, and assisted in saving half a dozen lives. ”

“ With a long shudder Toni descended the last step of the great staircase, and drifted slowly across the hall in the direction of the front door. Jock, following, pressed a little too closely against her, and turning, Toni saw, the faithful little friend whom she was about to leave gazing at her with a human appeal in his honest face.
"Take me! Let me go with you where you go! Why go out into the dim cold night alone, when you can have beside you one to protect you and give you love?" ”

“ Even Toni's depression could not hold beneath the tonic of that glorious ride. It was a splendid September day, when the country lay bathed in floods of rolling sunshine, and there was just enough bite in the air to set the blood racing through one's veins, and bring the sparkle to one's eyes.
Toni sat upright in the car, gazing out over the golden fields to the misty hills beyond, and everything she saw filled her with the true and vivid happiness which the lover of the "sweet things" of the earth knows so well. ”

“ Toni felt indignant that Mademoiselle Duval, a tall, thin, elderly, heartless, maiden lady, should laugh at Jacques when Toni displayed him, and tell Madame Marcel she could have bought a couple of boxes of tin soldiers for one-half the bonbons she had given Denise. But Toni had known all the time that very few grown people know anything about boys, and was simply filled with contempt for Mademoiselle Duval. ”

“ Toni was like one enchanted and hardly breathed.
When his mother finished speaking, the wood-carver said it seemed to him as if she thought the affair would half go of itself, but it was not so.
If a thing was to be done right, it cost much time and patience to learn. He was not averse to taking the boy, for it seemed to him that he had a desire to learn; but she would have to pay for his board for a couple of months in Frutigen, besides paying for his instruction, which would be as much as his board, and she herself must know whether she could spend so much on the boy. ”

“ In Toni's imagination the picture of her beloved was brilliantly illuminated by the glory of the tricoloured fraternity scarf, his desire for it had become so ardently her own, that she could not bear the thought of him—his yearning satisfied—returning to the gray commonplace garb of Philistia. And so she wrote him.
Spring came and Toni matured to statelier maidenhood. The plump girl, half-child, droll and naïve, grew to be a thoughtful, silent young woman, secretive and very sure of her aims. ”

“ 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. [Pg 228] 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. ”

“ The little boy grew strong and healthy and with his merry ways delighted his father's heart, when he remained at home on Sundays, and sweetened all his mother's work on week-days, when his father was away until late in the evening.
Little Toni was now four years old and already knew how to be helpful in all sorts of small ways, in the house and the goat's shed and also in the field behind the hut. From morning until night he tripped happily behind his mother for he was as content as the little birds up in the old fir-tree. ”

“ No woman was ever better loved and protected than poor Sophie. On this visit, for the first time, Toni plucked up spirit enough to speak to Madame Ravenel. She talked with him, in her gentle voice, about Bienville and his life there, and of Denise, and how she had been amused at watching them when they were little children together. Toni told Madame Ravenel how he dodged furtively around the corner of the acacia tree and climbed upon the garden wall to see her pass to and from church. ”

“ Like all tender-hearted women, Lucie was a natural and incurable match-maker. Nothing pleased her better than to forward the affair between Toni and Denise. She stopped Sergeant Duval in the street to praise Toni’s virtues, expatiating upon his industry. The sergeant listened respectfully enough until Toni’s industry was mentioned, when a grim look came into his eyes.
“Yes, Madame,” he said, “he is the most industrious fellow alive as long as I am after him and he has the prospect of being put in the barrack prison on bread and water. Oh, there is nobody who works harder than Toni.” ”

“ Toni was classed as a bad boy and Paul Verney as a good boy, yet the two formed one of those strange kinships of the soul which are stronger than blood ties and last as long as life itself.
Toni, being of a shrewd and discerning mind, realized that Paul Verney would have loved him just as much if Madame Marcel had not kept a candy shop, and this differentiated him from all the other boys in Bienville, and although Paul often severely reprobated Toni, and occasionally gave him kicks and cuffs, which Toni could have resented but did not, he had no fear whatever of Paul. ”

“ 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 himself was a demigod in red satin and a white sash, and was the crack rider of the circus. He had a large head-line of letters a foot high all to himself—Monsieur Louis D’Argens he was called on the bill-boards, although everybody about the circus called him Toni. Toni was then twenty years old and at least twenty years wiser than he had been seven years before. One does not spend seven years in the circus without learning many things. He learned all the immense wickednesses as well as the immense virtues which may be found in the lower half of humanity. ”

“ As they dashed past Toni, he recognized, in the slight, willowy figure in the close-fitting black habit and coquettish hat, Lucie Bernard, a young lady now, but the same beautiful, joyous sprite she had been ten years before in the park at Bienville. The cavalier riding with her was, like Toni, below middle size, but, unlike Toni, [Pg 139] light-haired and blue-eyed, not handsome, but better than handsome—manly, intelligent, clear of eye, firm of seat, full of life and energy, and with an unstained youth. It was—it was—Paul Verney. ”

“ He felt an acute pang of sorrow for Denise and an acute pang for himself and for Paul and Lucie—so young they all were, so happy, and that happiness threatened by a couple of wretches who would think no more of taking a man’s life than of killing a rat, if they had the opportunity.
He looked at the crowds of gaily-dressed people which filled the streets with life. He looked at Denise in the charming freshness of her youth, her tender eyes repeating with every glance that she loved Toni better than anybody else in the world. ”

“ Toni nodded.
“I have seen many women in the seven years that I have been traveling about the world,” said Toni, “but I never saw one who seemed to radiate modesty and goodness as Madame Ravenel. Do the Ravenels still live at Bienville?”
“Yes.” The color came into Paul’s face, which was pink already. “They live there as quietly as ever, but much respected. They are no longer avoided, but still live very quietly.”
Toni, looking into Paul’s eyes, saw his face grow redder and redder, and his mouth come wide open, as Toni said, with a sidelong glance and his old-time grin:
“And Mademoiselle Lucie?” ”

“ As he watched her gravely attending to the duties of the tea-tray, Owen told himself that he might have made a worse choice.
He had long ago surprised her secret—although Toni had no idea of her self-betrayal. At this stage of her development Toni was pure emotion—a mere lamp through which love might shine unchecked, casting its beams unashamedly upon the object of its devotion. Later she might learn, as many women do, to interpose a veil between her soul and the world. ”

“ To the end of her life Toni would never be bookish. She would always prefer living to reading about life; and it was fortunate that her work in this new library consisted largely of translating, roughly, from books in Italian and English, or in typing, from dictation, in either language.
She grew to like her employment in the quiet, mediæval-looking room. Her employer, a gentle, sad-eyed elderly man with an invalid daughter, treated her with the utmost kindness; and if it had not been that every fibre in her being cried out incessantly for Owen, she might in time have been content. ”

“ Jacques never remonstrated with Toni, never contradicted him, never wanted any share of the candy which Toni abstracted under his mother’s nose and ran down in the meadow to munch. There were some things Toni could say to Jacques that he could not say to any human being in the world, not even to Paul Verney, and Jacques never showed the least surprise or disgust. It is a great thing to have a perfectly complaisant, unvarying friend always close to one, and such was Jacques to Toni. ”

“ One morning, as he was stepping out on the deck of his steamer, Toni approached him with a mysterious air, his face assuming an ashy pallor.
When they reached the saloon at the stern, the mate spoke in a low voice, looking around him.
The night before he had gone ashore in order to visit the theater. All of Toni's literary tastes and his emotions were concentrated in vaudeville. Men of talent had never invented anything better. From it he used to bring back the humming songs with which he beguiled his long watches on the bridge. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But one must accept honors even when thrust upon one. It made the prospect of the riding-school seem less attractive to Toni. He not only began to feel that the separation from Paul would be harder than ever, but from Lucie also, and the little baby Paul. In some unaccountable way this little morsel of humanity had stolen his way into Toni’s heart, so much so, that when the baby preferred to play with Jacques in preference to all the expensive toys which were lavished on him, Toni actually tied Jacques around the baby’s neck and made a solemn gift of it to him. ”

“ To the clever, highly-trained mind of the Girton girl Toni's whole personality was so appallingly feeble.
"The brains of a hen, and the soul, probably, of a chorus-girl." So Miss Loder, quite unjustly, summed up Toni. "Married the man to get out of a life of drudgery, I expect, and is as much of a companion to her husband as a pretty little Persian cat would be. Why will these nice men marry such nonentities, I wonder? She is bound to be a drag on him all her days."
For all her shrewdness Miss Loder never dreamed that her estimation of Toni was clearly evident to the person concerned. ”

“ She smiled and looked at him and then away from him. Denise remembered the bench under the acacia tree and all that had happened there well enough. Denise knew then, and knew now, that when the Toni of those days gave up something to eat to a small girl, his feelings were very deeply engaged to her. She recollected in particular the first afternoon the Ravenels took tea with the Verneys that Toni had selected one beautiful, ripe plum, and after eying it longingly, had put his arm around her neck and put the plum in her mouth, and what he had said then. Her blushing now revealed it all to Toni. ”

“ Owen's eyes roamed from Eva's face to Toni's, and something in the manner of both girls puzzled him. "I don't know him, do I, Toni? Is he really an old friend of yours? But you've never asked him here, have you?"
"He—he's not exactly an old friend," said Toni, annoyed to feel herself colouring. ”