four o'clock
But the sound was too common in revolutionary Paris to arrest attention , and he wrote on , heeding it as little as he did the gruff voice of a pastry-cook crying his wares , the shriller call of a milkman , or the occasional rumblings of passing vehicles . But of a sudden one of those rumblings ceased abruptly at his door . He heard the rattle of hoofs and the grind of the wheel against the pavement , and looking up , he glanced across at the ormolu timepiece on his overmantel . It was not yet four o'clock . Wondering whether the visitor might be for him or for the tenant of the floor above , he sat listening until his door opened and his official -- the euphemism of `` servant '' in the revolutionary lexicon -- came to announce that a woman was below , asking to see him . Now for all that he believed himself to have become above emotions where Mademoiselle de Bellecour was concerned , he felt his pulses quicken at the very thought that this might be she at last . `` What manner of woman , Brutus ? ''