midnight
`` It 's all been pleasant , but rather -- heroic . '' It was an effort for him to speak lightly and cheerfully . The long ride out to the Quemado was a thing to which he was not accustomed , and the merrymaking had seemed to him quite monotonous after an hour or two . Even the midnight supper had not seemed a particularly gay thing to him . He was not quite a youth any more , and he had never been young , it seemed to him , in the way in which these desert folk were young . Joy seemed to them a kind of intoxication -- as if it were not to be indulged in save at long intervals . `` I did n't overtax myself , '' replied Sylvia .