eight o’clock
And she would not now have such bad tobacco . '' ... . He was on the point of lighting one of the Virginian cigarettes , a present from Maitland . He threw it away , making a grimace with his air of a spoiled child , at the risk of scorching the rug which lay upon the marble floor ; and he passed into the antechamber in order to fetch his own case in the pocket of the light overcoat he had prudently taken on coming out after eight o'clock . As he lighted one of the cigarettes in that case , filled with so-called Egyptian tobacco , mixed with opium and saltpetre , which he preferred to the tobacco of the American , he mechanically glanced at the card which the servant had left on going from the room-the card of the unknown visitor for whom Madame Steno had left him . Ardea read upon it , with astonishment , these words : Count Boleslas Gorka . `` She is better than I thought her , '' said he , on reentering the deserted office .