about five o'clock
And as the stars were overwhelmed and the shapes and substances of things grew into being out of the amorphous dark , he must have seen more and more distinctly the festive preparations beyond the beech clumps near the green pavilion in the outer park , the three stands for the privileged spectators , the raw , new fencing of the enclosure , the sheds and workshops , the Venetian masts and fluttering flags that Banghurst had considered essential , black and limp in the breezeless dawn , and amidst all these things a great shape covered with tarpauling . A strange and terrible portent for humanity was that shape , a beginning that must surely spread and widen and change and dominate all the affairs of men , but to Filmer it is very doubtful whether it appeared in anything but a narrow and personal light . Several people heard him pacing in the small hours -- for the vast place was packed with guests by a proprietor editor who , before all understood compression . And about five o'clock , if not before , Filmer left his room and wandered out of the sleeping house into the park , alive by that time with sunlight and birds and squirrels and the fallow deer . MacAndrew , who was also an early riser , met him near the machine , and they went and had a look at it together . It is doubtful if Filmer took any breakfast , in spite of the urgency of Banghurst . So soon as the guests began to be about in some number he seems to have retreated to his room .