“Toni, is this yours? I found it in the street,”—and, opening her little hand—oh, joy!—there was Jacques, his shako a little crooked, one of his legs out of plumb, but it was Jacques. Toni, without a word of thanks, seized Jacques, and, rushing off, flew to his favorite spot for meditation—a little corner on one of the abutments of the old stone bridge. Once there, he kissed Jacques and held him to his breast, and told him of the heart-breaking search made for him, and Jacques, as usual, was silently sympathetic and understood all that Toni had suffered.
Meanwhile Paul Verney, ashamed for Toni’s want of manners in not thanking Denise and all unaware of the great wave of gratitude that was surging through Toni’s whole being, went into the shop and told Madame Marcel of Toni’s good fortune. Madame Marcel was so overjoyed that she not only invited Paul to help himself to whatever he wanted in the way of sweets, but ran out and, catching Denise in her arms, kissed her and brought her into the shop and invited her, as she had invited Paul Verney, to select what she wished. Denise, with characteristic modesty, took two small sticks of candy, but Madame Marcel gave her, as well as Paul, a large bag of very beautiful bonbons.
It was late in the afternoon before Toni appeared, his eyes shining like the stars that peeped in at his little window, his wide mouth showing all his white teeth. Madame Marcel took him by the hand, and they went over with state and ceremony to thank Denise for restoring the loved and lost Jacques. Toni felt indignant that Mademoiselle Duval, a tall, thin, elderly, heartless, maiden lady, should laugh at Jacques when Toni displayed him, and tell Madame Marcel she could have bought a couple of boxes of tin soldiers for one-half the bonbons she had given Denise. But Toni had known all the time that very few grown people know anything about boys, and was simply filled with contempt for Mademoiselle Duval. She was thin and ugly, too, not round and plump like his own mother, and had the bad taste to prefer clean, well-mannered little girls to dirty and greedy boys. Up to that time, Toni’s feelings toward Denise had been purely of a mercenary character, but from the day she restored Jacques a little seedling sentiment sprang up in Toni’s heart; the great master of all passions had planted it there. It was something like what he felt for Paul Verney—a sense of well-being, even of protection, when Denise was near. She had acted the part of a guardian angel, she had restored Jacques to him, and she did not seem to mind his dirty face and grimy hands. She acquired a bewitching habit of dividing with Toni the stale apple tarts her aunt gave her, and, beckoning to him across the street, she would have him sit by her on the bench under the acacia tree and always give him at least two-thirds of the tarts.
A few days after the tragedy of Jacques’ loss and return, Sergeant Duval, Denise’s father, appeared for his annual visit to Bienville. The story of Jacques was told to him, and when he came over to pay his call of ceremony on Madame Marcel, he was so rude as to twit Toni about Jacques. Toni, much displeased at this, retired to his usual place of refuge under the counter, and concluded that when he married Denise he would contrive to be absent during Sergeant Duval’s annual visit.
CHAPTER II
Paul Verney was twelve years old, and had never had any affairs of the heart, like Toni. But one June afternoon, in the same summer when Toni had lost and recovered Jacques, and had succumbed to the tender passion, fate overtook Paul Verney in the person of Lucie Bernard, the prettiest little creature imaginable, prettier even than Denise and very unlike that small piece of perfection. Paul, who was very fond of reading, took his book, which happened to be an English one, to the park that afternoon of fate, and was sitting on a bench, laboriously puzzling over the English language, when a beautiful little girl in blue, with a gigantic sash and large pale blue hat, with roses blushing all over it, under which her dark hair fell to her waist, came composedly up to him and said:
“Let me see your book.”