eleven o’clock
A week afterward he went to dine at a beautiful villa on the Caelian Hill , and , on arriving , dismissed his hired vehicle . The evening was charming , and he promised himself the satisfaction of walking home beneath the Arch of Constantine and past the vaguely lighted monuments of the Forum . There was a waning moon in the sky , and her radiance was not brilliant , but she was veiled in a thin cloud curtain which seemed to diffuse and equalize it . When , on his return from the villa -LRB- it was eleven o'clock -RRB- , Winterbourne approached the dusky circle of the Colosseum , it recurred to him , as a lover of the picturesque , that the interior , in the pale moonshine , would be well worth a glance . He turned aside and walked to one of the empty arches , near which , as he observed , an open carriage -- one of the little Roman streetcabs -- was stationed . Then he passed in , among the cavernous shadows of the great structure , and emerged upon the clear and silent arena . The place had never seemed to him more impressive .