The distant, mechanical music of the fête was in the air, and occasional gusts of laughter and of applause broke the monotonous rhythm of the melody.
Luc and Clémence moved farther and farther away from these sounds; the streaming sunlight wrapped them in warmth and glory, the beech trees were a dazzle of golden colour before their eyes, and the sky overhead was clear blue without a trace of cloud. The girl sighed, looked at the trees, the heavens, then at the ground.
“Are you sad, my dear?” asked Luc very tenderly.
“No,” she answered in a thin voice; “only I should like to do—something—for you.”
“For me?” His face flashed into a charming smile.
“Yes.” She lifted her childlike countenance and her voice was stronger. “Sometimes I wish that you were poor or lonely or—despised—that I might prove what I can only say now.”
He was abashed and overwhelmed. He saw tears of sincerity glittering on her long, drooping lashes; the heroic in his own soul was quick to salute the heroic rising to him in hers.
He stopped and turned to face her.
“You must not say that,” he said, taking her by the shoulders very gently. “I do not deserve that you should say that, Clémence.”
She shuddered and bent her head lower.