Toni struck his forehead with his open palm.
“Oh!” he cried, “Denise is not for me. I am only a private soldier—I never will be anything else.”
“You can be something else if you choose,” said Paul Verney.
“And I have been in the circus. The sergeant will never forgive me that.”
Paul shook his head dolefully. It was pretty bad, and the sergeant was a great stickler for correctness of behavior. But Paul, being a lover himself, and a poor man, who sincerely loved a rich girl, sympathized with Toni.
“Oh, well,” he said, “we must wait and see. One thing is certain—if Mademoiselle Denise takes a notion into her head to like you the sergeant will give in, for he is a very doting father. But, Toni, you must behave yourself after this.”
“Indeed I will,” replied Toni. “When I tell you what I have got by bad association, you will understand that I mean what I say.”
And then Toni, seating himself at Paul’s command, poured out the story of all that he had suffered at the hands of Nicolas and Pierre, ending up with that last dreadful account of the murder of Delorme.
“And that secret, Paul, I am carrying,” cried poor Toni, putting his fists to his eyes, into which the tears started, “and sometimes it’s near to killing me.”
Paul listened closely. He realized, quite as fully as Toni did, the position in which Toni had got himself, and did not make light of it.