midnight
Suddenly , one winter , he became less industrious , fitful in his work , gloomy one day and elated the next , generally uncomfortable . What was the matter ? Strange to say , although we were such friends , we chose different sets of society , and therefore seldom appeared at the same houses or knew the same people . He liked most things continental ; he found his social pleasures in that polite Bohemia which indulges in midnight suppers and permits ladies to smoke cigarettes after dinner , which dines at rich men 's tables and is hob-a-nob with Russian Counts , Persian Ministers , and German Barons . That was not to my taste , save as a kind of dramatic entertainment to be indulged in at intervals like a Drury Lane pantomime . But though I had no proof that such was the case , I knew Luke Freeman 's malady to be a woman . I taxed him with it .