midnight
Clearly the man had not changed . He was always at Sylvia 's heels ; he was seen with her in public ; he went to the Belwether house a great deal . No possible doubt but that he was as infatuated as ever . And Quarrier was going to marry her next November -- that is , if he , Mortimer , chose to keep silent about a certain midnight episode at Shotover . It was his inclination , except in theory , to keep silent , partly because of his native inertia and unwillingness to go to the physical and intellectual exertion of being a rascal , partly because he did n't really want to be a rascal of that sort . Like a man with premonitions of toothache , who walks down to the dentist 's just to see what the number of the house looks like , and then walks around the block to think it over , so Mortimer , suffering from lack of money , walked round and round the central idea , unable to bring himself to the point . Several times he called up Quarrier on the ` phone and made appointments to lunch with him ; but these meetings never resulted in anything except luncheons which Mortimer paid for , and matters were becoming desperate .