noon
`` If you go on like this , you two , '' Hermione exclaimed , `` you will make me feel as if it were degraded to wish to live anywhere except at Clapham Junction or the North Pole . Let us be happy as we are , where we are , to-day and -- yes , call me weak if you like -- and to-morrow ! '' Maurice made no answer to this challenge , but Artois covered his silence , and kept the talk going on safe topics till Gaspare came to the terrace to lay the cloth for collazione . It was past noon now , and the heat was brimming up like a flood over the land . Flies buzzed about the terrace , buzzed against the white walls and ceilings of the cottage , winding their tiny , sultry horns ceaselessly , musicians of the sun . The red geraniums in the stone pots beneath the broken columns drooped their dry heads . The lizards darted and stopped , darted and stopped upon the wall and the white seats where the tiles were burning to the touch .