midnight
She seemed to be acting on Barbara 's advice and refraining from any malignant activity ; for no report of the Waddington affair had as yet penetrated into the tea-parties and little dinners at Wyck-on-the-Hill . Punctually every Friday evening Mr. Thurston of the Elms , and either Mr. Hawtrey or young Hawtrey of Medlicott , turned up at the White House for their bridge . If Mrs. Dick Benham chose to write venomous letters about Elise Levitt to old Mrs. Markham , that was no reason why they should throw over an agreeable woman whose hospitality had made Wyck-on-the-Hill a place to live in , so long as she behaved decently _ in _ the place . They kept it up till past midnight now that Mrs. Levitt had had the happy idea of serving a delicious supper at eleven . -LRB- She had paid her debts of honour with Mr. Waddington 's five pounds ; the fifty she reserved , in fancy , for the cost of the chickens and the trifles and the Sauterne . -RRB- In Mr. Thurston and the Hawtreys the bridge habit and the supper habit , and what Billy Hawtrey called the Levitty habit , was so strong that it overrode their sense of loyalty to Major Markham . The impression created by Mrs. Dick Benham only heightened their enjoyment in doing every Friday what Mrs. Thurston and Mrs. Hawtrey persisted in regarding as a risky thing .