At New Year’s Paul’s father and mother and Captain and Madame Ravenel came to Beaupré for a visit. The little house could not accommodate more than two persons besides the master and mistress, so Monsieur and Madame Verney were entertained in great style at the Château Bernard by Madame Bernard. Toni had never been able to see Madame Ravenel without being reminded, as Paul had told him in their boyhood, of a soft and solemn strain of music in a dim cathedral, or of the river taking its way at twilight softly through the grassy meadow where the violets grew. She was still sad—she never could be anything but that—but her beautiful eyes had lost their troubled look and she seemed at peace. Captain Ravenel was the same quiet, silent, soldierly man as always, who was never far from Madame Ravenel’s side. 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. Madame Ravenel went to church as much as ever, but now she went a little way within the church, though never close up to the altar, and Captain Ravenel maintained his old practice of escorting her to church and walking up and down in the street smoking his cigar until she came out, when he escorted her home again, and never let her be one waking moment without his protection.
Since Lucie had come into her American fortune the Ravenels no longer found it necessary to practise that stern economy which had characterized the first years of their married life. Lucie made Sophie accept an allowance, small indeed compared with the fortune which Delorme had squandered, but it was enough to lift the Ravenels above poverty. The week that the Ravenels and the Verneys were at Beaupré was a time of quiet happiness to everybody in the modest house in which Lucie played at being poor. Madame Bernard had, of course, declared at first that she could only see Sophie and Ravenel surreptitiously, as it were, but ended, as she invariably did, by driving up in her great coach and absolutely taking Sophie to drive in the face of all Beaupré. This was Lucie’s doing, unaided by either of the persons concerned, by Paul, or by Captain Ravenel, but Lucie was accustomed to triumphs of this sort and knew perfectly well how to achieve them.
One morning, a year after Paul’s marriage, when Toni went to him at seven o’clock in the morning, he found Paul already up and dressed and walking in the garden, and he shouted, as Toni came in:
“It’s a boy, Toni.”
And that very day Toni was taken up stairs into a darkened room where, in a lace and silk covered bassinet lay the little Paul, who seemed to Toni at once grotesque and sacred, as indeed it seemed to Paul himself. The baby waxed and thrived, and, after a while, when Lucie and Paul again had their breakfast in the garden, as they had done in their early married life, the baby was brought out and lay in his nurse’s arms blinking solemnly at the great wide world before him. Paul Verney was a devoted father, and as he had talked intimately with Toni all his life, so he talked with him about this child so longed for and so loved.
“It seems to me, Toni,” said Paul, one morning after breakfast in the garden, when Lucie and the baby had gone within for their noonday rest, and Paul was looking over some papers which Toni had brought him, “it seems to me, Toni, as if I am too happy. It makes me afraid.”
A look of fear came into Toni’s eyes.
“I feel the same way,” he whispered, “everything seems to be too easy—too bright. Now, if the sergeant had kept on opposing me or if Mademoiselle Duval were against me—but I do assure you, Paul, they are both as sweet as milk. I don’t know how long it will last, but if it lasts until I marry Denise that will be long enough. My mother has just sold a little piece of ground she had, on the outskirts of Bienville, and has got a thumping price for it. I think the sergeant is more in love with her than ever, since she sold the ground for such a price.”
“Well, Toni,” answered Paul gaily, “we don’t deserve our happiness—that much is certain. I am no more fit for Lucie than you are fit for Denise—she’s a thousand times too good for you and always will be—but we can enjoy our happiness just the same.”
Another year passed, and Toni had come to believe that this earth was Heaven and would have been most unwilling to leave it for the brightest prospects above. Denise was then very busy sewing at her wedding trousseau, and Toni would be Paul’s servant only a little while longer. A corporal was Toni to become—an honor that Toni had no more dreamed of than of succeeding President Loubet. This honor was equally astonishing to Sergeant Duval. But all the same Toni was to be promoted and was not to ride in the ranks any longer. This distinction he had not coveted, as it implied a great deal more work even than he had to do as a private soldier.