noon
It will be better thus than with the suddenness with which I might have had to act . '' A new alarm seized upon Anne as to his possible intentions , but she would not forestall what she so much apprehended , and , sensible that self-control alone could guard her , since escape at present was clearly impossible , she resigned herself to sit opposite to him by the ample hearth of what she perceived to be a fisherman 's hut , thus fitted up luxuriously with , it might be feared , the spoils of the sea . The story was a long one , and not by any means told consecutively or without interruption , and all the time those eyes were upon her , one yellow the other green , with the effect she knew so well of old in childish days , of repulsion yet compulsion , of terror yet attraction , as if irresistibly binding a reluctant will . Several times Peregrine was called off to speak to some one outside the door , and at noon he begged permission for his friends to dine with them , saying that there was no other place where the dinner could be taken to them comfortably in this storm . `` It was between the night and day , When the Fairy King has power , That I sunk down in a sinful fray , And ` twixt life and death was snatched away To the joyless Elfin bower . '' SCOTT . This motto was almost the account that the twisted figure , with queer contortions of face , yet delicate feet and hands , and dainty utterance , might have been expected to give , when Anne asked him , `` Was it you , really ? ''