one o'clock
`` I ca n't -- I ca n't -- I never shall be able to ! '' He leaned his elbows on the writing-table and put his head in his hands . When he looked up , after some minutes , he met Charmian 's half-closed , photographed eyes . Between twelve and one o'clock the noise of a piano organ playing vigorously , almost angrily , `` You are Queen of my heart to-night , '' came up to him from the square , softened , yet scarcely ameliorated , by distance and intervening walls . With bold impertinence it began , continued for perhaps three minutes , then abruptly ceased in the middle of a phrase . Claude knew why . One of the four maids , incited thereto by Charmian , had rushed out to control the swarthy Italian who was earning his living in the land without light .