noon
The task having taught him something of verse-making , he composed an ode , which he sent by post to his mistress . The poem was writ in tears of blood , yet it was as cold and insipid as a schoolboy 's exercise . Still , he did get something said of the fair vision of a woman that hovered for ever before his eyes , and of the door he had kissed in a night of frenzy . Monsieur Servien was disturbed to note how his son had grown heedless , absent-minded , and hollow-eyed , coming back late at night , and hardly up before noon . Before the mute reproach in his father 's eyes the boy hung his head . But his home-life was nothing now ; his whole thoughts were abroad , hovering around the unknown , in regions he pictured as resplendent with poetry , wealth and pleasure . Occasionally , at a street corner , he would meet the Marquis Tudesco again .