midnight
that 's funny . '' Though she removed neither her hat nor her gloves , she installed herself in an armchair , where she sat waiting , with her eyes wide open and staring straight before her -- those brown eyes flecked with gold , whose living light was all that she had retained of her massacred beauty . At sixty-two she looked like a centenarian ; her bold , insolent face was ravined , as it were , by her stormy life , and the glow of her sun-like hair had been extinguished by a shower of ashes . And time went on , midnight approached , and she was still there , near that death-bed of which she seemed to be ignorant , in that quivering chamber where she forgot herself , similar to a mere thing , apparently no longer even knowing why she had been brought thither . Mathieu and Boutan had been unwilling to retire . Since Monsieur was at Nice in the company of those ladies , the aunt and the niece , they decided to spend the night there in order that Constance might not be left alone with the old servant . And towards midnight , while they were chatting together in undertones , they were suddenly stupefied at hearing Seraphine raise her voice , after preserving silence for three hours .