Without budging and very low and very quickly, just as he had spoken, she replied full of trouble: "Crazy! Foolish boy! Silence! I beg of you...." A stroller-by of a certain age limped slowly past them. They felt their two bodies melt together with tenderness.... Nobody left on the walk. A sparrow with ruffled feathers was dusting itself in the sand. The fountain shed its lucent droplets. Timidly their faces turned one toward the other; and scarcely had their eyes met each other, when like the rush of birds their mouths met, frightened and closely pressed--and then they flew apart. Luce sprang up, departed. He also had risen. She said to him: "Stay here." They did not dare to look at one another any longer. He murmured: "Luce! That little bit ... that little bit of happiness ... say, now we have it!" * * * * * THE weather caused an interruption to the lunches by the fountain of the sparrows. Fogs came to obscure the February sun. But they could not snuff out the one they carried in their hearts. Ah! all the bad weather you could wish might be on hand: cold, hot, rain, wind, snow or sun! Everything would be well, always. And even, things would be better. For when happiness is in its period of growth the very finest of all the days is always today. The fog offered them a benevolent pretext not to separate during a portion of the day. Less risk that way of being observed. In the morning he went to wait for her at the arrival of the train and he accompanied her in her walks about Paris. He had the collar of his overcoat turned up. She wore a fur toque, her boa rolled in a chilly way up to her chin, her little veil tightly tied on, which her lips pushed out and made in it a small round relief. But the best veil was the moist network of the protective mist. The mist was like a curtain of ashes, dense, grayish, with phosphorescent spots. One could not see farther than ten yards. It became thicker and thicker as they passed down the old streets perpendicular to the Seine. Friendly fog, in which a dream stretches itself between ice-cold linen and shudders with delight! They were like the almond in the shell of the nut, like a flame enclosed in a dark lantern. Pierre held the left arm of Luce closely pressed to him; they walked with the same step, almost of the same stature, she a trifle taller, twittering in a halfvoice, their figures quite close together; he would have liked to kiss the little moist round on her veil.