midday
`` I must go home ; good-bye , '' Verena said , abruptly , to her companion . `` Go home ? You wo n't come and dine , then ? '' Verena knew people who dined at midday and others who dined in the evening , and others still who never dined at all ; but she knew no one who dined at half-past three . Ransom 's attachment to this idea therefore struck her as queer and infelicitous , and she supposed it betrayed the habits of Mississippi . But that could n't make it any more acceptable to her , in spite of his looking so disappointed -- with his dimly-glowing eyes -- that he was heedless for the moment that the main fact connected with her return to Tenth Street was that she wished to go alone . `` I must leave you , right away , '' she said .