ten in the morning
As the bottom goes off very rapidly from the two islands to a depth of eight to nine hundred feet , we did not long confine ourselves to bottom-fishing , but gradually advanced to every variety of manoeuvre , doing middle-water spinning with three-triangle flights and sliding lip-hook for jack and trout , trailing with the sail for salmon , live-baiting with the float for pike , daping with blue-bottles , casting with artificial flies , and I could not say in which she became the most carelessly adept , for all soon seemed as old and natural to her as an occupation learned from birth . * * * * * On the 21st October I attained my forty-sixth birthday in excellent health : a day destined to end for me in bloodshed and tragedy , alas . I forget now what circumstance had caused me to mention the date long beforehand in , I think , Venice , not dreaming that she would keep any count of it , nor was I even sure that my calendar was not faulty by a day . But at ten in the morning of what I called the 21st , descending by my private spiral in flannels with some trout and par bait , and tackle -- I met her coming up , my God , though she had no earthly right to be there . With her cooing murmur of a laugh , yet pale , pale , and with a most guilty look , she presented me a large bouquet of wild flowers . I was at once thrown into a state of great agitation . She was dressed in rather a frippery of _ mousseline de soie _ , all cream-laced , with wide-hanging short sleeves , a large diamond at the low open neck , the ivory-brown skin there contrasting with the powdered bluish-white of her face , where , however , the freckles were not quite whited out ; on her feet little pink satin slippers , without any stockings -- a divinely pale pink ; and well back on her hair a plain thin circlet of gold ; and she smelled like heaven , God knows .