two hours after noon
`` Let her forget while she can , '' she thought , and covered her face again . `` It is still early in the day . '' The bees hummed on ; a low wind swept over a full-blown rose and shook its loose leaves to the ground . The shadow from the ruined tower began to touch the field which lay nearest the river , a sign that it was two hours after noon . The large square fresh-water fishing-net had sunk under the surface , the canes which framed it were out of sight ; only the great central pole , which sustained the whole , and was planted in the ground of the river-bank , remained visible as it bent and swayed but did not yield or break . Such nets as this had been washed by the clear green waters of the pools and torrents of the Edera ever since the days of Etruscan gods and Latin augurs ; religions had changed , but the river , and the ways of the men of the river , had not altered . Adone did not touch it , for it was well where it was ; he seated himself on the bank ready to seize and hold it if its pole showed any sign of yielding and giving way and heeling over into the stream .