midday
The little sea horses , slender and graceful as chess-pieces , were rising and descending in the bluish environment , wiggling their tails and twisting themselves in the form of interrogation points . When the captain approached the end of the four galleries of the Aquarium without having seen more than the maritime animals behind the glistening glasses and a few uninteresting people in the greenish semi-light , he felt all the discouragement of a day lost . `` She wo n't come now ! ... '' In passing from this damp , cellar-like atmosphere to the sunlit garden , the report of the midday gun struck him like an atmospheric blow . Lunch hour ! ... And surely Freya was not going to lunch in the hotel ! During the afternoon his footsteps strayed instinctively toward the hill streets of the district of Chiaja .