noon
The women -- they were beautiful women , slow-moving , slow-eyed , of soft laughter and sudden melancholy , and clear , serene profiles and abundant hair . And they were all _ alive _ , fully and mysteriously alive , alive to their finger-tips . It was as if in comparison all other women acted and moved in a kind of half-consciousness . It was as if , St. George thought vaguely , one were to step through the frame of a pre-Raphaelite tapestry and suddenly find its strange women rejoicing in fulfillment instead of yearning , in noon instead of dusk . As he stood looking down the vast chamber , all springing columns and light lines lifting through the honey-coloured air , it smote St. George that these people , instead of being far away , were all near , surprisingly , unbelievably near to him , -- in a way , nearer to his own elusive personality than he was himself . They were all obviously of his own class ; he could perfectly imagine his mother , with her old lace and Roman mosaics , moving at home among them , and the bishop , with his wise , kindly smile . Yet he was irresistibly reminded of a certain haunting dream of his childhood in which he had seemed to himself to walk the world alone , with every one else allied against him because they all knew something that he did not know .