midday
One does , I think , as one gets older . '' For women are always , always , always talking about what one feels , and if they say `` as one gets older , '' they mean you to reply with something quite off the point . Jacob sat himself down in the quarry where the Greeks had cut marble for the theatre . It is hot work walking up Greek hills at midday . The wild red cyclamen was out ; he had seen the little tortoises hobbling from clump to clump ; the air smelt strong and suddenly sweet , and the sun , striking on jagged splinters of marble , was very dazzling to the eyes . Composed , commanding , contemptuous , a little melancholy , and bored with an august kind of boredom , there he sat smoking his pipe . Bonamy would have said that this was the sort of thing that made him uneasy -- when Jacob got into the doldrums , looked like a Margate fisherman out of a job , or a British Admiral .