eight o'clock
On the other were Billie and her friends -- foolish little butterflies , enjoying their brief hour in the secret garden of life , eternally chattering about `` good times , '' playing they were happy , perhaps even thinking they were happy , but infinitely more tragic figures than Louise and Doris . Yet a week ago he had thought they amused him ! Pondering on these and other large problems , he absently removed the bloom from three fresh white ties . At eight o'clock Laurie found Doris sitting under the shade of a reading-lamp in her studio , deep in the pages of a sophisticated French novel and radiating an almost oppressive atmosphere of well-being . Subconsciously , he resented this . His mood was keyed to tragedy . But he returned her half-serious , half-mocking smile with one as enigmatic , shook hands with grave formality , and surveyed with mild interest a modest heap of bank-notes of small denominations that lay on the table , catching the room 's high lights .