nearly two o'clock
Resolutely she put the subject from her and began to consider what her own best course would be with Fay , her nephew and niece , and , very shortly , a new baby on her hands . Jan was not a young woman to let things drift . She had kept house for a whimsical , happy-go-lucky father since she was fourteen ; mothered her beautiful young sister ; and , at her father 's death , two years before , had with quiet decision arranged her own life , wholly avoiding the discussion and the friction which generally are the lot of an unmarried woman of five-and-twenty left without natural guardians and with a large circle of friends and relations . It was nearly two o'clock when she undressed and went to bed , and before that she had drafted two cablegrams -- one to a house-agent , the other to her bankers . For Jan the next two days passed as in a more or less disagreeable dream . She could never afterwards recall very clearly what happened , except that Sir Langham Sykes seemed absolutely omnipresent , and made her , she felt , ridiculous before the whole ship , by proclaiming far and wide that she had bestowed upon him the healing gift of sleep . He was so effusive , so palpably grateful , that she simply could not undeceive him by telling him that after they parted the night before she had never given him another thought .