four o’clock
he thought to himself with a gesture of vexation , `` there are some pasts very different from that door , -- they are always wide open to the present . '' Then , after a moment 's silence , he added , to cover his retreat , `` Augusta , I wanted to ask you what hour Madame de l'Estorade receives . I ought to call upon her to-morrow , after what happened here to-night . '' `` At four o'clock , '' said the young wife through the door , -- `` on her return from the Tuileries , where she takes the children to walk every day . '' One of the questions that were frequently put by Parisian society after the marriage of Madame de Rastignac was : `` Does she love her husband ? '' The doubt was permissible . The marriage of Mademoiselle de Nucingen was the unpleasant and scarcely moral product of one of those immoral unions which find their issue in the life of a daughter , after years and satiety have brought them to a condition of dry-rot and paralysis .