But the Sun shone on and held his peace. He sees all things ripen and fall. He can wait. He knows the end. It is always the same.
He brings the fruit out of the peach-flower, and rounds it and touches it into ruddiest rose and softest gold; but the sun knows well that the peach must drop—whether into the basket to be eaten by kings, or on to the turf to be eaten by ants. What matter which very much after all?
The Sun is not a cynic; he is only wise because he is Life and He is death, the creator and the corrupter of all things.
"And where are you going so fast, as if those wooden shoes of yours were sandals of mercury?"
"Mercury—is that a shoemaker?"
"No, my dear. He did a terrible bit of cobbling once, when he made Woman. But he did not shoe her feet with swiftness that I know of; she only runs away to be run after, and if you do not pursue her, she comes back—always."
Bébée did not understand at all.
"I thought God made women?" she said, a little awe-stricken.