midnight
To expect me to help her is perhaps to treat me as a friend ; but she ought to remember -- or at least I ought to remember -- that Gordon is an older friend than she . Inviting me to help her as against my oldest friend -- is n't there a grain of impudence in that ? '' It will be gathered that Bernard 's meditations were not on the whole favorable to this young lady , and it must be affirmed that he was forcibly struck with an element of cynicism in her conduct . On the evening of her so-called midnight visit to the Kursaal she had suddenly sounded a note of sweet submissiveness which re-appeared again at frequent intervals . She was gentle , accessible , tenderly gracious , expressive , demonstrative , almost flattering . From his own personal point of view Bernard had no complaint to make of this maidenly urbanity , but he kept reminding himself that he was not in question and that everything must be looked at in the light of Gordon 's requirements . There was all this time an absurd logical twist in his view of things .