midnight
He pulled himself together , somehow , and drove on . The girl was entering the restaurant by way of the revolving door , Wertheimer in attendance ; while De Morbihan , having alighted , was lending a solicitous arm to Bannon . Quite automatically the adventurer drove on , rounded the Madeleine , and turned up the boulevard Malesherbes . Paris and all its brisk midnight traffic swung by without claiming a tithe of his interest : he was mainly conscious of lights that reeled dizzily round him like a multitude of malicious , mocking eyes ... . At the junction with the boulevard Haussmann a second sergent de ville roused him with a warning about careless driving . He went more sanely thereafter , but bore a heart of utter misery ; his eyes still wore a dazed expression , and now and again he shook his head impatiently as though to rid it of a swarm of tormenting thoughts . So , it seemed , he had all along been her dupe ; all the while that he had been ostentatiously shielding her from harm and diffidently discovering every evidence of devotion , she had been laughing in her sleeve and planning to return to the service she pretended to despise , with her report of a fool self-duped .