eight in the morning
Too proud to extort a promise of secrecy from Mrs. Bayford , he knew the value of his indiscretion -- if indiscretion it were -- to any purveyor of tea-table gossip ; and while Diane and he remained in the same relative positions he was sure it was being bruited about , with his own authority , that they were to become man and wife . It did not diminish the absurdity of the situation that he was debarred from proposing and settling the affair at once by the grotesque fact that he actually had not time . There was certainly little opportunity for lovemaking in those hurried days of preparing for his long absence in South America . He was often obliged to leave home by eight in the morning , rarely returning except to go wearily to bed . Though nothing had been said to him , he had more than one reason for suspecting that Mrs. Bayford was at work ; and , at the odd minutes when he saw Diane , it seemed to him as if her clearness of look was extinguished by an expression of perplexity . He would have reproached himself more keenly for his lack of energy in overcoming obstacles had it not been for the fact that , owing to their peculiar position as members of one household , and that household his , he was planning to ask Diane to become his wife on that occasion when he would also be bidding her adieu . She would thus be spared the difficulties of a trying situation , while she would have the season of his absence in which to adjust her mind to the revolution in her life .