CHAPTER VII
In the summer Paul Verney came home from boarding-school. He was much taller and broader than he had been before, much improved in mind, but the same kind, brave, gentle Paul. He was overjoyed to see Toni again, and the two lads, on meeting, hugged each other, or rather Toni hugged Paul; for although Paul was tender-hearted, he was undemonstrative and felt the dignity of his fourteen years and his two terms at boarding-school. Not so with Toni, who had no sense of personal dignity whatever.
At once their old relations were established and the two lads spent many hours together, as they had done in summers past, cuddled together on the abutment of the bridge, and telling each other long stories, Paul of his experiences at boarding-school, and Toni, stories of what Jacques had told him, and what Hermann had told him, and what the horses told him, and what he meant to be when he was a man. He confided to Paul the charm of learning to play the violin, and shocked Paul’s honest soul by the frank acknowledgment that learning the violin was a means to avoid going to work.
But this made no difference in Paul’s feelings. He hated dirty, idle boys in general, but loved the dirty, idle Toni, and, being by nature correct, methodical, and orderly, he adored the two most unconventional creatures ever put into this world, little Lucie Bernard and Toni.
In due time Lucie also came for her annual visit, accompanied by the wooden-faced Harper, the nursery governess. Lucie sometimes passed Paul in the street, and always bowed and smiled at him in the most captivating way, which caused Paul’s face to turn scarlet, and sent his boyish pulses galloping. He confided to his mother’s ear that Lucie had arrived, and for the fortnight that she stayed he haunted the park every afternoon. He was now promoted to long trousers, and felt his dignity very much. He longed for an opportunity to talk with Lucie, but as the case often is, all the arrangements for private interviews had to be made by the lady. Lucie was an ingenious little person, and not easily daunted, and it was not many days before she managed to escape from Harper’s eagle eye, and from Madame Ravenel’s gentle supervision, and to come upon Paul, walking soberly along the path, and secretly wishing for her.
“How do you do, Monsieur Verney?” said Lucie, dropping him a pretty little curtsey. “How tall you are!”
Paul bowed, and managed to say:
“You, too, have grown, Mademoiselle.”