seven o’clock
The lady of Cadogan Place was to read deeper , however , within three days , and the page was turned for her on the eve of her young confidant 's leaving London . The awaited migration to Fawns was to take place on the morrow , and it was known meanwhile to Mrs. Assingham that their party of four were to dine that night , at the American Embassy , with another and a larger party ; so that the elder woman had a sense of surprise on receiving from the younger , under date of six o'clock , a telegram requesting her immediate attendance . `` Please come to me at once ; dress early , if necessary , so that we shall have time : the carriage , ordered for us , will take you back first . '' Mrs. Assingham , on quick deliberation , dressed , though not perhaps with full lucidity , and by seven o'clock was in Portland Place , where her friend , `` upstairs '' and described to her on her arrival as herself engaged in dressing , instantly received her . She knew on the spot , poor Fanny , as she was afterwards to declare to the Colonel , that her feared crisis had popped up as at the touch of a spring , that her impossible hour was before her . Her impossible hour was the hour of its coming out that she had known of old so much more than she had ever said ; and she had often put it to herself , in apprehension , she tried to think even in preparation , that she should recognise the approach of her doom by a consciousness akin to that of the blowing open of a window on some night of the highest wind and the lowest thermometer . It would be all in vain to have crouched so long by the fire ; the glass would have been smashed , the icy air would fill the place .