about
nine o'clock
There was a calm insolence about the girl which induced me to retire from that parley . In two hours I was on my way to London . The boat-train was due to leave in ten minutes , and the platform at Victoria Station -LRB- how changed since then ! -RRB- showed that scene of discreet and haughty excitement which it was wont to exhibit about nine o'clock every evening in those days . The weather was wild . It had been wet all day , and the rain came smashing down , driven by the great gusts of a genuine westerly gale . Consequently there were fewer passengers than usual , and those people who by choice or compulsion had resolved to front the terrors of the Channel passage had a preoccupied look as they hurried importantly to and fro amid piles of luggage and groups of loungers on the wind-swept platform beneath the flickering gas-lamps .