midnight
The sight of this bevy of pleasure-seekers , all apparently with multitudes of friends , might have engendered a sense of loneliness in a man of different disposition . To Mr. Sabin his isolation was a luxury . He had an uninterrupted opportunity of pursuing his favourite study . There entered a party towards midnight , to meet whom the head-waiter himself came hurrying from the further end of the room , and whose arrival created a little buzz of interest . The woman who formed the central figure of the little group had for two years known no rival either at Court or in Society . She was the most beautiful woman in England , beautiful too with all the subtle grace of her royal descent . There were women upon the stage whose faces might have borne comparison with hers , but there was not one who in a room would not have sunk into insignificance by her side .