eight o’clock precisely
I shall take charge of the dining-room myself to-night . ' And Jules departed , rubbing his fine white hands slowly and meditatively . It was a trick of his , to rub his hands with a strange , roundabout motion , and the action denoted that some unusual excitement was in the air . At eight o'clock precisely dinner was served in the immense salle manger , that chaste yet splendid apartment of white and gold . At a small table near one of the windows a young lady sat alone . Her frocks said Paris , but her face unmistakably said New York . It was a self-possessed and bewitching face , the face of a woman thoroughly accustomed to doing exactly what she liked , when she liked , how she liked : the face of a woman who had taught hundreds of gilded young men the true art of fetching and carrying , and who , by twenty years or so of parental spoiling , had come to regard herself as the feminine equivalent of the Tsar of All the Russias .