noon
He had waved her a good-by from the platform , and smiled : and for a long time , as she drove through the silent roads , his words and his manner remained as vivid as though he were still by her side . He was a man who had fought and conquered , and who fought on for the sheer love of it . It was a blue day in the hill country . At noon the clouds had crowned Sawanec -- a sure sign of rain ; the rain had come and gone , a June downpour , and the overcast sky lent -LRB- Victoria fancied -RRB- to the country-side a new atmosphere . The hills did not look the same . It was the kind of a day when certain finished country places are at their best -- or rather seem best to express their meaning ; a day for an event ; a day set strangely apart with an indefinable distinction . Victoria recalled such days in her youth when weddings or garden-parties had brought canopies into service , or news had arrived to upset the routine of the household .