nine o'clock
The air of insolent familiarity , expressed by the _ negligée _ toilet he had assumed , quickly enabled the marquise to perceive how entirely she had been mistaken in his character . Led away by the kindness and goodness of her heart , and the generosity of her disposition , to take a step which might for ever destroy her reputation , she had accorded this meeting , not from love , but solely from commiseration , in order to console him for the ridiculous part the bad taste of the Duke de Lucenay had made him play before her at the embassy . Words can ill describe the disgust and vexation with which Madame d'Harville beheld the slipshod _ déshabillé _ of the commandant , implying as it did his opinion how completely her ill-judged condescension had broken down the barriers of etiquette , and led him to consider no further respect towards her necessary . The timepiece in the small salon which Madame d'Harville ordinarily occupied struck nine o'clock . Dressmakers and tavern-keepers have so much abused the style of Louis XV . and the Renaissance , that the marquise , a woman of infinite taste , had excluded from her apartments this description of ornament , now become so vulgarised , and confined it to that part of the hôtel devoted to the reception of visitors and grand entertainments . Nothing could be more elegant or more _ distingué _ than the fitting-up of the salon in which the marquise awaited Rodolph .