midday
He knew much about young couples , but only in general terms , and nothing of the particular young couple I sought . He reminded me in the most disagreeable way of the sensuous aspects of life , and I was not sorry when presently a gunboat appeared in the offing signalling the coastguard and the camp , and cut short his observations upon holidays , beaches , and morals . I went , and now I was past my ebb , and sat in a seat upon the parade , and watched the brightening of those rising clouds of chilly fire that made the ruddy west seem tame . My midday lassitude was going , my blood was running warmer again . And as the twilight and that filmy brightness replaced the dusty sunlight and robbed this unfamiliar place of all its matter-of-fact queerness , its sense of aimless materialism , romance returned to me , and passion , and my thoughts of honor and revenge . I remember that change of mood as occurring very vividly on this occasion , but I fancy that less distinctly I had felt this before many times . In the old times , night and the starlight had an effect of intimate reality the daytime did not possess .