one o'clock
Not that Forsytes lived there -- nobody lived there save royalty , rangers , and the deer -- but in Richmond Park Nature was allowed to go so far and no further , putting up a brave show of being natural , seeming to say : ` Look at my instincts -- they are almost passions , very nearly out of hand , but not quite , of course ; the very hub of possession is to possess oneself . ' Yes ! Richmond Park possessed itself , even on that bright day of June , with arrowy cuckoos shifting the tree-points of their calls , and the wood doves announcing high summer . The Green Hotel , which Jolyon entered at one o'clock , stood nearly opposite that more famous hostelry , the Crown and Sceptre ; it was modest , highly respectable , never out of cold beef , gooseberry tart , and a dowager or two , so that a carriage and pair was almost always standing before the door . In a room draped in chintz so slippery as to forbid all emotion , Irene was sitting on a piano stool covered with crewel work , playing ` Hansel and Gretel ' out of an old score . Above her on a wall , not yet Morris-papered , was a print of the Queen on a pony , amongst deer-hounds , Scotch caps , and slain stags ; beside her in a pot on the window-sill was a white and rosy fuchsia . The Victorianism of the room almost talked ; and in her clinging frock Irene seemed to Jolyon like Venus emerging from the shell of the past century .