Things turned out very much as Toni had anticipated. The sergeant had reached that time of life when he began to look forward to his retirement. He had saved up something and, by his sister’s thrift and generosity, Denise was provided for, but the idea of Madame Marcel’s large, warm, cheerful kitchen in winter, and shady garden in summer would be extremely attractive to a retired sergeant on half-pay. And Madame Marcel was extremely comely, there was no doubt about that, and not given to scolding like Mademoiselle Duval.
As for Madame Marcel, she saw through the sergeant in forty-eight hours, and what she did not see Toni enlightened her upon.
“Mama,” said he, some days after, when the two were in the privacy of Madame Marcel’s room, “I think Sergeant Duval wants to marry you.”
For answer, Madame Marcel blushed up to her eyes and replied:
“For shame, Toni. I have no idea of marrying again.”
“I didn’t say you had,” replied the wily Toni. “I said the sergeant wants to marry you, or, rather, I think he wants to marry the shop. But he doesn’t want to marry me—I am too big to thrash. But, Mama,” he continued, coming up to her and putting his arm around her waist, a species of love-making which mothers adore, “you mustn’t throw the sergeant down too hard; at least, not for the present; because I—I”—here Toni blushed more than his mother and grinned bashfully, “because I want to marry Denise. I never told you this before.”
“There was no need to, Toni,” replied his mother, laughing, “I have seen it ever since you were ten years old, and I think Denise wants to marry you.”
At this Toni’s black eyes danced.
“I think so, too,” he said, with his own inimitable naïvete. “For all she is so bashful she has told me so a great many times, with her eyes, that is.”