noon
He pushed against it . She fell back , and he took her into his arms and pressed his lips to hers . With Irene 's farewell note in his pocket and ever present to his mind , Mostyn spent the remainder of the morning on which it was received mechanically instructing the elated Delbridge in his rival 's new duties at the bank as its future president . At noon he tore himself away , plunging again into the streets , there even more fully to face himself and his coming humiliation . The hot , busy thoroughfares , steaming under the water sprayed upon them by trundling sprinkling-carts , were a veritable bedlam -- canons of baked pavements and heartless walls of brick and mortar , plate glass and glaring gilt signs . Cries of newsboys -- and cheerful , happy cries they were -- fell on his ears in sounds so incongruous to his mood that they pierced his soul like hurled javelins of steel . The affairs of the world , once so fascinating , were moving on ; a juggernaut of a thousand wheels was rumbling toward him .