ten o’clock
Upon which her companion , who seemed to regard this as a speech of good omen , embraced her more tenderly than might have been expected and triumphantly withdrew . Osmond touched on this matter that evening for the first time ; coming very late into the drawing-room , where she was sitting alone . They had spent the evening at home , and Pansy had gone to bed ; he himself had been sitting since dinner in a small apartment in which he had arranged his books and which he called his study . At ten o'clock Lord Warburton had come in , as he always did when he knew from Isabel that she was to be at home ; he was going somewhere else and he sat for half an hour . Isabel , after asking him for news of Ralph , said very little to him , on purpose ; she wished him to talk with her stepdaughter . She pretended to read ; she even went after a little to the piano ; she asked herself if she might n't leave the room . She had come little by little to think well of the idea of Pansy 's becoming the wife of the master of beautiful Lockleigh , though at first it had not presented itself in a manner to excite her enthusiasm .