noon
Concealed dirt shocked her as much as it would have shocked her mother ; and as for the trickeries of the toilet table , she contemned them as harshly as a young saint who has never been tempted contemns moral weakness . She thought of the strange flaccid daily life of those two women , whose hours seemed to slip unprofitably away without any result of achievement . She had actually witnessed nothing ; but since the beginning of her convalescence her ears had heard , and she could piece the evidences together . There was never any sound in the flat , outside the kitchen , until noon . Then vague noises and smells would commence . And about one o'clock Madame Foucault , disarrayed , would come to inquire if the servant had attended to the needs of the invalid . Then the odours of cookery would accentuate themselves ; bells rang ; fragments of conversations escaped through doors ajar ; occasionally a man 's voice or a heavy step ; then the fragrance of coffee ; sometimes the sound of a kiss , the banging of the front door , the noise of brushing , or of the shaking of a carpet , a little scream as at some trifling domestic contretemps .