midnight
I reached up uncertainly , and brought her hand down to my lips and a great peace descended upon my sick soul . `` Home -- with you , '' I said , like a child , and fell asleep . Oh , but it was clean , and sweet , and wonderfully still , that rose-and-white room at Norah 's ! No street cars to tear at one 's nerves with grinding brakes and clanging bells ; no tramping of restless feet on the concrete all through the long , noisy hours ; no shrieking midnight joy-riders ; not one of the hundred sounds which make night hideous in the city . What bliss to lie there , hour after hour , in a delicious half-waking , half-sleeping , wholly exquisite stupor , only rousing myself to swallow egg-nogg No. 426 , and then to flop back again on the big , cool pillow ! New York , with its lights , its clangor , its millions , was only a far-away , jumbled nightmare . The office , with its clacking typewriters , its insistent , nerve-racking telephone bells , its systematic rush , its smoke-dimmed city room , was but an ugly part of the dream .