noon
Miss Cardross said nothing . February , the gayest winter month on the East Coast , found the winter resorts already overcrowded . Relays and consignments of fashion arrived and departed on every train ; the permanent winter colony , composed of those who owned or rented villas and those who remained for the three months at either of the great hotels , had started the season vigorously . Dances , dinners , lawn fêtes , entertainments for local churches and charities left little time for anything except the routine of the bathing-hour , the noon gathering at `` The Breakers , '' and tea during the concert . Every day beach , pier , and swimming-pool were thronged ; every day the white motor-cars rushed southward to Miami , and the swift power-boats sped northward to the Inlet ; and the house-boat rendezvous rang with the gay laughter of pretty women , and the restaurant of the Beach Club flashed with their jewels . Dozens of villas had begun their series of house-parties ; attractive girls held court everywhere -- under coco-palm and hibiscus , along the beach , on the snowy decks of yachts ; agreeable girls fished from the pier , pervaded bazaars for charity , sauntered , bare of elbow and throat , across the sandy links ; adorable girls appeared everywhere , on veranda , in canoes , in wheel-chairs , in the surf and out of it -- everywhere youth and beauty decorated the sun-drenched landscape . And Hamil thought that he had never before beheld so many ornamental women together in any one place except in his native city ; certainly , nowhere had he ever encountered such a heterogeneous mixture of all the shades , nuances , tints , hues , and grades which enter into the warp and weft of the American social fabric ; and he noticed some colours that do not enter into that fabric at all .