midnight
Already it was one o'clock . Fortunately he was still in evening dress , and needed only to change collar and tie to repair the disarray caused by his encounter with Ekstrom . In two minutes he was once more in the street . Within five a cab deposited him in front of the Restaurant Au Printemps , an institution of midnight New York whose title for distinction resided mainly in the fact that it opened its upper floors for the diversion of `` members '' about the time when others put up their shutters . Lanyard 's advent occurred at the height of its traffic . The dining rooms on the street level were closed and unlighted : but men and women in pairs and parties were streaming across the sidewalk from an endless chain of motor-cars and being ground through the revolving doors like grist in the hopper of an unhallowed mill , the men all in evening dress , the women in garments whose insolence outrivalled the most Byzantine nights of L'Abbaye Thêlème . Drawn in with the current through the turnstile door , Lanyard found himself in an absurdly little lobby thronged to suffocation , largely with people of the half-world -- here and there a few celebrities , here and there small tight clusters of respectabilities making a brave show of feeling at ease -- all waiting their turn to be lifted to delectable regions aloft in an elevator barely big enough to serve in a private residence .