four
o'clock
The food served as an extinguisher upon any faint flame of the human spirit that might survive the midday heat , but Susan sat in her room afterwards , turning over and over the delightful fact that Mr. Venning had come to her in the garden , and had sat there quite half an hour while she read aloud to her aunt . Men and women sought different corners where they could lie unobserved , and from two to four it might be said without exaggeration that the hotel was inhabited by bodies without souls . Disastrous would have been the result if a fire or a death had suddenly demanded something heroic of human nature , but tragedies come in the hungry hours . Towards four o'clock the human spirit again began to lick the body , as a flame licks a black promontory of coal . Mrs. Paley felt it unseemly to open her toothless jaw so widely , though there was no one near , and Mrs. Elliot surveyed her found flushed face anxiously in the looking-glass . Half an hour later , having removed the traces of sleep , they met each other in the hall , and Mrs. Paley observed that she was going to have her tea . `` You like your tea too , do n't you ? ''