an angel passes

Definitions

1. 1

   Used to denote an awkward pause.

   • There was a momentary silence. Mrs. Oliver said: "Is it twenty-to or twenty past? An angel passing . . . My feet aren't crossed—it must be a black angel!"
   • As Case was picking up his beer, one of those strange instants of silence descended, as though a hundred unrelated conversations had simultaneously arrived at the same pause. […] Ratz grunted. “An angel passed.”

The neighborhood