noon
They filled the majestic avenue , poured up the shadowed alleys that taught the necessity of mystery , were grouped beneath the honey-sweet trees ; and above their heads , from every dome and column in the fair city , flowed and streamed the joyous , wizard , nameless colours of the pennons blown heavenward against the blue . They were come , this strange , wise , elusive people , to her marriage . The prince was smiling as he met her eyes ; for the world was always the exquisite intaglio , and to-day was its design . `` They know , '' he said simply , `` what was to have been at noon to-day . Do you not understand my condition ? '' Somewhat before noon the great doors of the Palace of the Litany and of the Hall of Kings were thrown open , and the people streamed in from the palace grounds and the Eurychôrus . Abroad among them -- elusive as that by which we know that a given moment belongs to dawn , not dusk -- was the sense of questioning , of unrest , of expectancy that belongs to the dawn itself .