midnight
The result of this for each of the pair was a state of occupation so unbroken that the day practically passed without fresh contact between them . They dined out together , but it was both in going to their dinner and in coming back that they appeared , on either side , to have least to communicate . Fanny was wrapped in her thoughts still more closely than in the lemon - coloured mantle that protected her bare shoulders , and her husband , with her silence to deal with , showed himself not less disposed than usual , when so challenged , to hold up , as he would have said , his end of it . They had , in general , in these days , longer pauses and more abrupt transitions ; in one of which latter they found themselves , for a climax , launched at midnight . Mrs. Assingham , rather wearily housed again , ascended to the first floor , there to sink , overburdened , on the landing outside the drawing-room , into a great gilded Venetian chair -- of which at first , however , she but made , with her brooding face , a sort of throne of meditation . She would thus have recalled a little , with her so free orientalism of type , the immemorially speechless Sphinx about at last to become articulate . The Colonel , not unlike , on his side , some old pilgrim of the desert camping at the foot of that monument , went , by way of reconnoissance , into the drawing-room .