midday
`` What better scheme could be devised than that I should indicate to Yan by signs that I would honour him , and at the same time instruct him further in the correct pose of some of the recognized attitudes , by making smooth the surface of his face ? Then during the operation I might perchance slip upon an overripe whampee lying unperceived upon the floor ; my hand -- '' `` Ah - _ ah _ ! '' cried Tsae-che aloud , pressing her symmetrical fingers against her gracefully-proportioned ears ; `` do not , thou dragon-headed one , lead the conversation to such an extremity of detail , still less carry the resolution into effect before the very eyes of this delicately-susceptible person . Now to-morrow , after the midday meal , she will be journeying as far as the street of the venders of woven fabrics in order to procure a piece of silk similar to the pearl-grey robe which she is wearing . The opportunity will be a favourable one , for to-morrow is the weekly occasion on which you raise the shutters and deny customers at an earlier hour ; and it is really more modest that one of my impressionable refinement should be away from the house altogether and not merely in the inner chamber when that which is now here passes out . '' `` The suggestion is well timed , '' replied Chou-hu . `` No interruption will then be possible . ''