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.”
“indeed i have,” answered lucie briskly, “and next year my hair is to be plaited.”
she shook her rich, brown locks that hung down to her waist, and were tied half-way with a bright scarlet ribbon, and paul thought in his heart it was a shame to hide such beautiful hair in a plait, such as little denise duval wore, and the tailor’s children; and he much preferred lucie’s hair hanging free, with the scarlet bow bobbing up and down. and then, the dancing scarlet bow seemed, in some way, to match her eyes, which had a gleam of fire in them and which were always dancing and full of life, and her little, sensitive mouth, which was always smiling.
“i hear you have been to boarding-school,” said lucie.
“yes, mademoiselle,” answered paul, quite timidly, as if he were the young lady, and lucie the bold and ardent suitor.
“i suppose you think yourself quite a man.”
“oh, no, mademoiselle, i am only a boy yet.”
“i don’t go to school—i have masters,” said lucie, “and a visiting governess who comes to the château bernard to teach me geography and history and things—but let me tell you, paul,”—here lucie dropped into a confidential tone and came quite close to paul, and put her rosy lips to his ear, “i don’t like to learn anything except english and music. english is no trouble at all, because sophie always spoke english to me, and i love music, although it is very hard work, but sophie made me practise on the piano until i can play it quite well, but for the other things—i don’t care whether i know them or not. my governess goes and complains to grandmama that i won’t learn, and then grandmama sends for me and scolds me, and then i kiss her and tell her i will do better, and that makes grandmama happy—but i don’t care to learn out of books, paul—that is the truth—i like to read stories, but they won’t let me read stories, not even sophie.”
paul looked at lucie and sighed heavily. was she another toni, masquerading in girls’ clothes? he could not understand, to save his life, these children who did not like to study and learn, and why they would not try to please their governesses and parents by trying, nor could he understand why the two beings destined to be nearest to his soul should be so different in these respects from his ideals. paul could not fathom this, but it troubled him very much indeed, and forthwith he said a few words to lucie something like those he had said to toni.
“oh, mademoiselle, one ought to learn—indeed one should—particularly if your grandmother and your sister sophie wish you to do it. i don’t mind learning in the least—i am going into the army, and if i don’t study and can’t pass the army examinations, i shall have to be a clerk or something of that sort—my parents are not rich, you know—so i must learn all i can.”
“tra la la,” cried lucie, stopping in the path, and doing a skirt dance, fluffing her voluminous little skirts up and down as she had seen a young lady do at the circus; “you are a boy, and you have to learn. who was that black-eyed, dirty little boyi saw walking with you on the street the other day?”
“that was toni,” answered paul, and proceeded to tell who toni was.
“and is he fond of learning, too?” asked lucie.
“not a bit,” sighed paul.
“then he must be just like me.”
paul burst into a sudden fit of laughter at the idea of toni and lucie being alike. lucie seemed to him like a little princess out of a story-book.
“i will tell you what, paul,” said she, “when i am eighteen, as i told you once before, i shall have heaps and heaps of money from america that i can do with as i please, and nobody can stop me, and i made up my mind, a long time ago, that i am coming to bienville to live with sophie and captain ravenel—oh, i do love them so much—they are so good to me! then you will be an officer, and you will have a beautiful sword, and a helmet with a horse-hair plume in it like the officers i see walking about here, and then i shall go to a ball, and some one will bring you up and introduce you to me, and say, ‘mademoiselle, may i introduce lieutenant verney?’ and then i shall bow to you as if i never saw you before, and then you will say, ‘mademoiselle, will you do me the honor to give me this dance?’ and we shall dance together, and then when nobody can hear, we shall talk about having known each other always, and it will be our secret, and no one will know it but ourselves. won’t it be charming?”
paul looked at lucie with a new, strange light in his eyes. lucie, although quite unknown to herself, was much further along the path to womanhood than paul was to manhood, but she seemed to be showing him some charming, prophetic vision.
“and you must not mention to a soul,” said lucie, “that you ever spoke one word to me before, and i will not tell any one that i ever spoke one word to you before. i was afraid to tell sophie that i had talked with you, because she would be vexed with me, and would not give me another chance to get away from her. so let us agree never to mention each other’s names to any one, but every summer we shall meet at bienville, and then, when we are grown up, we shall be introduced, but we shall know each other all the time, and then when nobody is listening, i shall call you paul and you will call me lucie.”
more strange, new, delicious feelings crept into the boy’s heart as lucie said these words. paul and lucie! he knew very well that when grown people called each other by their names they were very intimate, and how sweet it would be to know lucie well enough for that; and besides, if they never called each other by their names except when they were alone, they would escape being teased. so paul said, calling her for the first time by her name:
“lucie, you won’t forget this, will you?”
“no, paul,” said lucie, suddenly dropping her gay and saucy air, and speaking quite sweetly and demurely.
and then, having turned a leaf in the book of life, they parted. lucie heard harper’s voice calling her, and paul hurried away, his heart full of a singular rapture. how enticing the future looked to him! how he longed to be a man and an officer! and he meant to be a good officer, too, so that people would praise him to lucie. he hurried through the park and past the edge of the town into the fields beyond, and on to the stone bridge, and, climbing up into the place where he and toni had so often huddled together, sat there, lost in a delicious dream. it was an august afternoon, and the summer air was still and perfumed. in the purple woods on the other side of the water the birds were chirping sweetly, and under the bridge the little fishes were tumbling about in the dark water.
all these sights and sounds entered into the boy’s soul. the bell had been rung for the curtain to go up for this boy on the great tragi-comedy of human life. he sat there until the shadows grew long and the west was flaming, when, looking at the silver watch in his pocket, he realized that it was almost supper-time, and that he would have to run home to keep his mother from being uneasy. so he started at once.
as he scampered along the street in which toni lived he saw, standing under an acacia tree close by mademoiselle duval’s shop, toni and denise duval. denise, as clean, as modest, as pretty as ever, was generously dividing a bun with toni, and toni—oh wonder!—was giving denise two whole sticks of candy, only biting off one small piece for himself. paul stopped, astounded at the spectacle. usually it was toni who gobbled up everything which denise gave him, and now, oh, miracle, toni was voluntarily giving up something to denise. it was in truth an epoch-making day in toni’s life!
during the rest of lucie’s visit, she and paul several times spoke together, and every time it was paul who said to her:
“lucie, don’t forget that when we grow up we are to call each other paul and lucie,”—and every time lucie responded:
“don’t you forget, paul.”
paul, who secretly mourned over lucie’s depravity, talked to her quite seriously about refusing to learn geography and spelling and arithmetic and other rudiments of a young lady’s education. lucie listened and, for the first time in her life, felt herself impelled by a will stronger than her own. none of the governesses and masters who had ever taught her had been able to impress her with the necessity of learning, nor, indeed, did paul, for that matter, because lucie by no means considered that geography and spelling and arithmetic were essential to a polite education. but paul had an influence over her, nay, a sort of authority.
as lucie gazed at him, she gradually acquired an expression that a dog has for a kind master. for the first time in her life she found it easier to give up her own will than to persist in it. this feeling was but a gleam, but it was not evanescent.
it was one of the happiest visits lucie had ever paid in bienville, for sophie seemed a little more like her old self, and captain ravenel, too, was more cheerful. the story of the stand that colonel duquesne had taken about madame ravenel had leaked out mysteriously, and there was no danger of any further impertinence being offered sophie ravenel. the retired and blameless and self-sacrificing life the ravenels led was beginning to be known. the ultra-virtuous still hounded madame ravenel over their tea-cups in the winter and their ices in the summer; but, although no one had invaded the retirement of the ravenels so far, a number of people had begun the practice of speaking to them as they passed, and they were no longer avoided.
they even reached the point of courage to go sometimes and sit on the terrace, where the band played, and where the people sat at little tables, eating and drinking. one afternoon, shortly after lucie had left, they were actually invited to sit at the same table with the verneys. the ravenels walked on the terrace, evidently looking for a table, but there was not a vacant one. there were, however, two unoccupied seats where monsieur and madame verney and paul sat, drinking eau sucré. the ravenels were about to leave, when madame verney whispered something to her husband. monsieur verney at first shook his head, but madame verney persisted. that dream of her paul marrying the beautiful, charming heiress into which lucie bernard was certain to develop had haunted the good woman’s brain, and she urged her husband, in a whisper, to invite the ravenels to take the two vacant seats. monsieur verney, like a good, obedient husband, could not hold out long against his wife; and when the ravenels passed, not dreaming that any one in bienville would share a table with them, monsieur verney rose, and said politely:
“if you are looking for a place, monsieur, there are two chairs vacant here—we shall be most happy if you will occupy them.”
ravenel stopped, amazed, and the color poured into sophie ravenel’s beautiful, pale face, and in an instant more they were seated with the verneys, the first social recognition they had had since that day when delorme’s blow drove sophie into ravenel’s arms. after thanking monsieur and madame verney, the ravenels gave their modest order, and then, according to the polite manner of the french, they began to talk together.
captain ravenel at once recognized paul, and made the boy’s heart leap with delight.
“and this young gentleman i recollect well, as having been most polite and attentive to madame ravenel once, when she fell ill in the park.”
the verneys had known nothing of paul’s share in that scene, and did not identify him at all with that memorable occasion which was known all over bienville, when sophie ravenel had been so cruelly insulted. so monsieur and madame verney beamed with delight while captain ravenel gravely thanked paul.
the boy gazed at madame ravenel’s refined and melancholy beauty, and felt a renewal of the charm which she exercised over all sensitive natures. then his heart began to beat furiously as his mother said:
“i have often admired, madame, the little girl that i have seen with you in the park—your sister, i believe.”
“yes,” replied sophie, “my little half-sister, of whom i had the charge during all her babyhood, and who is like a child to both of us.”
“she is very, very pretty,” said madame verney, hoping that embodied prettiness would one day belong to her paul, together with all that went with it.
“and very good-hearted,” replied sophie, smiling. “she is not a french child—my stepmother was american, and lucie is like her, unconventional and even wilful, but good and tender-hearted beyond any creature that i have ever known. she lives with our grandmother, and grandmothers, you know, are not very severe mentors, so i am afraid my little sister does not get as good discipline as she would have had if her mother had lived; and when she comes to visit us, captain ravenel spoils her so—”
sophie stopped, turning her full, soft gaze on captain ravenel. she thought him the best, the noblest of men, and did not love him the less because he was so indulgent to lucie.
monsieur verney, putting his hand on paul’s shoulder, told captain ravenel that there was the future murat of the french army. paul’s father was always joking him, but the boy did not mind it in the least, and laughed at the notion of being a great cavalry officer.
“so you are going into the cavalry, eh?” asked captain ravenel. “why not the artillery?” ravenel himself had been an artillery officer.
“because i am not clever enough, i am afraid,” replied paul frankly; “an officer has to be very clever to be in the artillery—clever at his books, i mean, and i am not very clever at my books.”
“we do not complain,” said monsieur verney, in response to this speech, “he does very well at his books, but he has always wished to be in the cavalry, so i presume that is where he will land eventually.”
after a little while the ravenels rose—they were not persons who outstayed their welcome—and went away with gratitude in their hearts to the verneys. this was a little thing, but it was the entering wedge of something like social recognition in bienville. the next time they met on the terrace, it was monsieur verney, who, with madame, asked permission to sit at the table with the ravenels. captain ravenel, in the course of the conversation, mentioned some pictures he had of the arab tribesmen in algeria. monsieur verney spoke of them to paul next day, and the boy begged that he might ask captain ravenel to show him the pictures. monsieur verney consented, and that afternoon paul, finding the ravenels taking their accustomed walk, went up, and, according to his habit, blushing very much, said that his father had given him permission to ask captain ravenel to show him his arab pictures. captain ravenel promptly appointed the next morning, after breakfast, and paul presented himself at half after eleven. he was the first visitor of their own class who had darkened the door of the ravenels since they came to bienville.
captain ravenel not only showed him the pictures, but talked to him so interestingly that the boy went home captivated. moreover, he told his father that some things, which seemed so hard for him to learn at school, captain ravenel had made quite clear to him, and it came to monsieur verney’s mind that it would be a good thing to get captain ravenel to coach paul an hour or two every day during his holidays. madame verney rapturously approved of this. the vision of lucie hovered over it all. the arrangement was soon made, and, during the rest of his holidays, for two hours every day, paul sat with captain ravenel, in the garden on pleasant days, but in the salon when it was disagreeable, and studied mathematics and geography with him.
never was there so attentive a boy, and the verneys were charmed and delighted at the progress paul made in his studies. he was naturally of a determined and plodding nature, and ravenel was a good instructor, but there was another motive urging paul on. ravenel was lucie’s brother-in-law, and when that glorious day came, when lucie would be a young lady, living in bienville, and paul would be a young lieutenant of cavalry, calling her in public mademoiselle bernard, and in secret lucie, it would be a very good thing for him to be in favor with captain ravenel, and also with madame ravenel. paul’s politeness and courtesy, the promptness with which his cap came off his reddish hair when he saw madame ravenel, the way in which he flew to open the door or the gate for her, the gentleness of his behavior, made sophie his friend as much as captain ravenel.
