twelve o'clock
In spring the wistaria tree -LRB- whence the Pension borrowed its brave name , Les Glycines -RRB- hangs its blossoms between ` Poste ' and ` Telegraphe , ' and the perfume of invisible lilacs drenches the street from the garden at the back . Beyond , the road dips past the bee-hives of _ la cure _ ; and Boudry towers with his five thousand feet of blue pine woods over the horizon . The tinkling of several big stone fountains fills the street . But the traveller would not linger , unless he chanced to pass at twelve o'clock and caught the stream of people going into their mid - day dinner at the Pension . And even then he probably would not see the presiding genius , Madame Jequier , for as often as not she would be in her garden , busy with eternal bulbs , and so strangely garbed that if she showed herself at all , it would be with a shrill , plaintive explanation -- ` Mais il ne faut pas me regarder . Je suis invisible ! ' Whereupon , consistently , she would not speak again , but flit in silence to and fro , as though she were one of those spirits she so firmly believed in , and sometimes talked to by means of an old Planchette .