noon
Cardillac is not very likely to let them out of his hands again , if once he gets hold of them . '' She intended to take them to him next day ; but it seemed as if all the _ beaux esprits _ of Paris had entered into a league to assail and besiege her with verses , dramas , and anecdotes . Scarce had La Chapelle finished reading the scenes of a tragedy , and declared that he considered he had now vanquished Racine , when the latter himself came in , and discomfited him with the pathetic speech of one of his kings , until Boileau sent some of his fireballs soaring up into the dark sky of the tragedies , by way of changing the subject from that eternal one of the colonnade of the Louvre , to which the architectural Dr. Perrault was shackling him . When high noon arrived , Mademoiselle Scuderi had to go to Madame Montansier , so the visit to René Cardillac had to be put off till the following day . But the young man was always present to her mind , and a species of dim remembrance seemed to be trying to arise in the depths of her being that she had , somehow and somewhen , seen that face and features before . Troubled dreams disturbed her broken slumbers . It seemed to her that she had acted thoughtlessly , and delayed culpably to take hold of the hands which the unfortunate man was holding out to her for help -- in fact , as if it had depended on her to prevent some atrocious crime .