midday
Boarding-houses , private hotels , and lodging-houses in terraces clustered closely right and left of me , and then came to an end ; in one direction scaffolding marked a building enterprise in progress , in the other , after a waste interval , rose a monstrous bulging red shape , a huge hotel , that dwarfed all other things . Northward were low pale cliffs with white denticulations of tents , where the local volunteers , all under arms , lay encamped , and southward , a spreading waste of sandy dunes , with occasional bushes and clumps of stunted pine and an advertisement board or so . A hard blue sky hung over all this prospect , the sunshine cast inky shadows , and eastward was a whitish sea . It was Sunday , and the midday meal still held people indoors . A queer world ! thought I even then -- to you now it must seem impossibly queer , -- and after an interval I forced myself back to my own affair . How was I to ask ?