But Marcelle saw nothing of her companion's preoccupation. She almost danced beside him up the long curving incline of the rue Lepic, chaffing, as she passed, the children playing in the gutters, and pausing continually to sniff at some flower-vender's fragrant wares, or peer into the window of a tiny shop. She was glowing with health and happiness: her cheeks dappled with color, her eyes shining. When, finally, they emerged upon the Butte, she ran to the little wattled fence, and with her hands clasped behind her head, looked out across the city. Even when Papa Labesse had come up to her side, she said no word for several minutes.
They had started later than was usual, and already the daylight had begun to dim, and the west to turn from red to saffron, and from saffron to fawn. Directly below them lay a maze of steep and narrow streets, shelving toward the boulevard de Rochechouart; and far further, to the southwest, the place de l'Opéra was breaking into the alternate deep red and glaring white of electric advertising signs, the lettering of which could not be distinguished from where they stood, but which painted the faint haze of evening with swiftly changing contrasts of color.
Suddenly Marcelle began to speak, her voice eloquent with a strange, new music.
"Papa Labesse, dost thou comprehend what all this says to us, this wonderful city upon which we look each night, thou and I? From here—what? A bewilderment of lights, a sea of roofs, a murmur of faintly heard cries. But what does it mean? Surely, it is the voice of the mother of us all, of Paris, the great, the beautiful—of a woman, Papa Labesse: that finally, which thou canst never comprehend, pauvre Papa Labesse!—a woman who says but one word—love! Papa Labesse—L'amour, l'amour, l'amour!—again, and again, and again, l'amour!"
There was a long silence. Then, almost timidly, Papa Labesse laid his hand on hers.
"But thou dost not love, my little one,—thou?" he said.
Marcelle turned suddenly.
"Si, I love!" she answered.
Above the tapering, distant shaft of the Tour Eiffel a tiny cloud caught the last ray of the departed sun, blazed crimson for an instant, and then, as suddenly, gloomed to slate-gray.
"Que Dieu te bénisse!" said Papa Labesse, solemnly.