The Secret of Toni

by Molly Elliot Seawell

The sergeant frowned at Madame Marcel. He had never seen this phase of her character before.

“I assure you, Madame,” he said stiffly, “that if I care to aspire to the hand of a young woman of my daughter’s age, I might not be really considered too old; but I prefer a maturer person like yourself.”

Madame Marcel, seeing that the sergeant was becoming deeply chagrined, determined not to dash his hopes too suddenly, so she reassumed her old manner of girlish embarrassment and said:

“Well, Monsieur, one wedding makes many, you know; but a wedding is a fatiguing business to go through with, particularly at our age. It will take us both, at our time of life, several weeks to recover from this delightful event and we may then discuss the project you mention.”

This was slightly encouraging, and as the sergeant had nothing better to comfort himself with he contrived to extract some satisfaction from it.

When Denise appeared, dressed in her neat gray traveling gown, the Verneys’ handsome victoria was at the door to take her and Toni to the station. Toni and Denise felt very grand, as well as very happy, sitting up in the fine victoria with the pair of prancing bays, and although they were conscious that the footman and coachman were thrusting their tongues into their cheeks, it mattered very little to Denise and Toni, whose black eyes were lustrous with delight. At last, he reflected joyously, he had some one who would be obliged to look after him the rest of his life.

When they reached the station the train was almost ready to depart. Toni had wished, on this auspicious day, to travel to Paris second-class, but the prudent Denise concluded that as they would go through life third-class they had better begin on that basis. So Toni selected a third-class carriage which was vacant and, tipping half a franc to the guard, he and Denise found themselves in it without other company. It was their first moment alone since they had been made one. Toni put his arm around Denise and drew her head on his shoulder with the strangest feeling in his heart of being protected, and Denise, for her part, had the sense of having adopted this fine, handsome, laughing fellow, to shield under her wing the rest of her life. Yet they were lovers deep and sincere. No French gentleman had ever treated his fiancée with greater respect than Toni, the corporal, had treated Denise, or ever had a higher rapture in their first long kiss.

He was roused from his dream in Paradise by the consciousness of a sinister presence near him, and his eyes fell on the red head of Nicolas peering like the serpent in the Garden of Eden in at the window of the railway carriage. If the place of eternal torment had yawned before Toni’s eyes he could not have felt a greater horror. And this was increased when Nicolas coolly opened the door of the carriage and got in, followed by Pierre, and the two seated themselves directly opposite the newly-married pair. Almost immediately the train moved off. Toni had only one thought in his mind—to keep Denise from finding out that terrible secret of his—why he hated and feared these men. He hated and feared them now more than ever, but some new courage seemed to be born in him. The cardinal difference between a brave man and a coward is that a brave man can think when he is afraid and can even act sensibly, and a coward can not do either. Always before this when he had been frightened, Toni had acted like a fool, but now he acted as sensibly as Paul Verney himself could, and for once behaved bravely, although he was contending with men instead of horses. The two rogues opposite him leered at Denise, nudged each other, and Pierre held out his hand to Toni.