eleven o’clock
The tête-à-tête had not been a pleasant one , at any rate as far as Francesca was concerned , but at least it had brought her the information for which she had been seeking . Her rôle of looker-on from a tactful distance had necessarily left her much in the dark concerning the progress of the all-important wooing , but during the last few hours she had , on slender though significant evidence , exchanged her complacent expectancy for a conviction that something had gone wrong . She had spent the previous evening at her brother 's house , and had naturally seen nothing of Comus in that uncongenial quarter ; neither had he put in an appearance at the breakfast table the following morning . She had met him in the hall at eleven o'clock , and he had hurried past her , merely imparting the information that he would not be in till dinner that evening . He spoke in his sulkiest tone , and his face wore a look of defeat , thinly masked by an air of defiance ; it was not the defiance of a man who is losing , but of one who has already lost . Francesca 's conviction that things had gone wrong between Comus and Elaine de Frey grew in strength as the day wore on . She lunched at a friend 's house , but it was not a quarter where special social information of any importance was likely to come early to hand .