noon
He kept seeing her continually as she entered the jungle -LRB- walking so silently and swift , her face flushed from crossing the open space this side of the city in the terrible heat of noon -RRB- -- and then not finding him there . Something about this hurt like degrading a sacred thing , but he did n't mean to . He repeated that he did n't mean to hurt her ... . Then suddenly it occurred to him that it was all his own thinking about her coming at noon . There had been no word about it . She might not have thought of coming again . This was like a cold breath through the jungle .