nine o'clock
Notwithstanding , she wasted more time than she knew trying to picture to herself a man who looked like Michael Lanyard sounded , and wishing -LRB- no matter what his looks might be -RRB- that she were his long-lost daughter Sofia , and that he would see the advertisement , and communicate privately as requested , and hear news of her , and come speeding in a Rolls-Royce to the Café des Exiles , and walk in and humble Papa Dupont with a look of hauteur and confound Mama Thérèse with a peremptory word , and take Sofia by the hand and lead her out and induct her into such an environment as suited her rightful station : said environment necessarily comprising a town house if not on Park Lane at least nearly adjacent to it , and a country house sitting , in the mellowed beauty of its Seventeenth Century architecture , amid lordly acres of velvet lawn and private park . She hoped the country house would be within sight of the sea , and that the family garage would run to a comfortable little town-car for her personal use when she went shopping in Bond Street , or to pay calls or leave cards , or to concerts and matinees ... . At about this stage her châteaux en Espagne began to rock upon their foundations ; a seismic phenomenon due to the appearance of Mama Thérèse and Papa Dupont , coming from zinc and kitchen for their dinner , which meal they habitually consumed in the café when the evening rush was over , the tables undressed , and the establishment had settled down to drowse away the dull hours till closing time . Thus reminded that it was nine o'clock or thereabouts of a stuffy evening in a stodgy world where nothing ever happened that had n't wearily happened the day before and the day before that and so back to the beginning of Time , and was n't scheduled tediously to continue happening to-morrow and the day after and so on to the end of Eternity , Sofia sighed and shook herself and put away the vanity of dreams . But her beauty , as she sat brooding , was as sultry as the night . In the rear of the room Mama Thérèse and Papa Dupont wrangled sourly over their food ; not with impassioned rancour but in the natural order of things -- as others might discuss the book of the moment or the play of the year or scandal or Charlie Chaplin or the thundering fiasco of Versailles -- these two discussed each other 's failings with utmost candour and freedom of expression : handling their subjects without gloves ; never hesitating to touch upon topics not commonly mentioned in civil intercourse or to use the apt , unprintable word ; never dreaming of politely terming a damned old hoe a spade ; tossing the ball of recrimination to and fro with masterly ease . Their preoccupation with this pastime was so thoroughgoing that Mama Thérèse even failed to notice the passage of the postman on his last round of the day .