about midnight
They looked at her and went away , and came again and looked at her . And the more they thought about it , the more puzzled they became . Some of them asked her questions , but what Tommy really did n't know , added to what she did n't mean to tell , was so prodigious that Curiosity itself paled at contemplation of it . They washed and brushed her up and gave her an excellent supper ; and putting her into a first-class compartment labelled `` Reserved , '' sent her back to Waterloo , and thence in a cab to Gough Square , where she arrived about midnight , suffering from a sense of self-importance , traces of which to this day are still discernible . Such and thus was the beginning of all things . Tommy , having talked for half an hour at the rate of two hundred words a minute , had suddenly dropped her head upon the table , had been aroused with difficulty and persuaded to go to bed . Peter , in the deep easy-chair before the fire , sat long into the night .