Toni was not at all frightened at the imminent circumstances of the day. On the contrary, he felt a sense of protection in marrying Denise. She would always be at hand to take care of him, for Toni felt the need of being taken care of just as much, in spite of his five feet ten, and his one hundred and fifty pounds weight, and his being the crack rider in the regiment, as he had done in the old days at Bienville when he ran away from the little Clery boys. He did not, therefore, experience the usual panic which often attacks the stoutest-hearted bridegroom, and went through the wedding breakfast with actual courage. He absolutely forgot everything painful in his past life. Nicolas and Pierre melted away—he did not feel as if they had ever existed. The secret which had haunted him was a mere fantasy, that vanished in the glow of his wedding morning.
Paul and Lucie came in during the breakfast and Paul proposed the bridegroom’s health with his hand on Toni’s shoulder, Toni grinning in ecstasy meanwhile. Paul spoke of their early intimacy, and Toni made a very appropriate reply—at least Denise and Madame Marcel thought so. After the lieutenant and his wife had left, the fun grew fast and furious. It was as merry a wedding breakfast as Paul’s and Lucie’s, even though the guests were such simple people as would come to the corporal’s wedding with the sergeant’s daughter. Toni could have said with truth that it was the happiest day of his life.
When the wedding party dispersed, and they returned to the Duvals’ lodgings that the bride might change her dress, the sergeant, being left alone in the little sitting-room with Madame Marcel, grew positively tender, saying to her in the manner which he had found perfectly killing with the girls twenty-five years before:
“Now, Madame, that we have seen our children happily married we should think somewhat of our own future. The same joy which those two children have may be ours.”
Madame Marcel, who had heretofore received all the sergeant’s gallant speeches with an air of blushing consciousness, suddenly burst out laughing in a very self-possessed manner, and said:
“Oh, we are much too old, Monsieur; we should be quite ridiculous if either one of us thought of marrying.”
The sergeant received a shock at this, particularly as he considered himself still young and handsome.
“My dear Madame Marcel,” he replied impressively, “certainly age has not touched you and I flatter myself”—here he drew himself up and twirled the ends of his superbly-waxed mustaches—“that so far time has not laid his hand heavily on me.”
“If you wish to marry, Monsieur,” replied Madame Marcel, still laughing, “you ought to marry some young girl. Men of your age always like girls young enough to be their daughters,” and she laughed again quite impertinently.