The sun glowed to its setting; superb bars of purple and scarlet began to burn out of the dense gold of the west; a low, clear breeze arose and swept over the grass.
Clémence broke the charmed silence.
“Are you sure of me?” she asked with panting force.
He gave her a quick smile; the glamour of all his visions and hopes transfigured the moment.
“As I am sure of God,” he said. He raised the cold, mittened hand from the fence and kissed it.
“Ah, Luc,” she said below her breath, “Luc!”
They went slowly back towards the fête with the sun behind them and their shadows long across the grass before them, and all the air circled with glory and the ineffable light of the setting sun.
As they entered the grounds of the fair they met the old Marquis and Joseph.
If Luc had needed any completion of his happiness he would have found it in the radiant demeanour of his father, whose every wish had been now fulfilled and satisfied. He did not know of Luc’s correspondence with M. de Voltaire; in Aix, Luc attended Mass, and never mentioned the new philosophy that guided Paris. There was nothing to trouble the elder M. de Vauvenargues’s touching pleasure in his sons.
Coloured lamps began to appear in the trees, mingling their twinkling beams with the sanguine fires of the sun, and music sounded with renewed gaiety from the gaudy tents.