five o'clock
Sylvia was still under the spell of the riotous , full-blown splendor of the paintings she had seen . Wherever she looked , she saw again the rainbow brilliance of those glossy satins , that rippling flooding golden hair , those ample , heaving bosoms , those liquid gleaming eyes , the soft abundance of that white and ruddy flesh , with the patina of time like a golden haze over it . The spectacle had been magnificent and the scene they now entered was a worthy successor to it . They walked down through the garden of the Tuileries and emerged upon the Place de la Concorde at five o'clock of a perfect April afternoon , when the great square hummed and sang with the gleaming traffic of luxury . Countless automobiles , like glistening beetles , darted about , each one with its load of carefully dressed and coiffed women , looking out on the weaving glitter of the street with the proprietary , complacent stare of those who feel themselves in the midst of a civilization with which they are in perfect accord . Up the avenue , beyond , streamed an incessant parade of more costly ears , more carriages , shining , caparisoned horses , every outfit sumptuous to its last detail , every one different from all the others , and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them , till in the distance they dwindled to a black stream dominated by the upward sweep of the Arc de Triomphe , magnified to fabulous proportions by the filmy haze of the spring day . To their left flowed the Seine , blue and flashing .