four
o'clock in the afternoon
There were more dangers , clearly , round about Lancaster Gate than one suspected in New York or could dream of in Boston . At all events , with more sense of them , there were more precautions , and it was a remarkable world altogether in which there could be precautions , on whatever ground , against Susie . She certainly made up with Susie directly , however , for any allowance she might have had privately to extend to tepid appreciation ; since the late and long talks of these two embraced not only everything offered and suggested by the hours they spent apart , but a good deal more besides . She might be as detached as the occasion required at four o'clock in the afternoon , but she used no such freedom to any one about anything as she habitually used about everything to Susan Shepherd at midnight . All the same , it should with much less delay than this have been mentioned , she had not yet -- had not , that is , at the end of six days -- produced any news for her comrade to compare with an announcement made her by the latter as a result of a drive with Mrs. Lowder , for a change , in the remarkable Battersea Park . The elder friends had sociably revolved there while the younger ones followed bolder fancies in the admirable equipage appointed to Milly at the hotel -- a heavier , more emblazoned , more amusing chariot than she had ever , with `` stables '' notoriously mismanaged , known at home ; whereby , in the course of the circuit , more than once repeated , it had `` come out , '' as Mrs. Stringham said , that the couple at Lancaster Gate were , of all people , acquainted with Mildred 's other English friend -- the gentleman , the one connected with the English newspaper -LRB- Susie hung fire a little over his name -RRB- who had been with her in New York so shortly previous to present adventures . He had been named of course in Battersea Park -- else he could n't have been identified ; and Susie had naturally , before she could produce her own share in the matter as a kind of confession , to make it plain that her allusion was to Mr. Merton Densher .