midnight
She lay there and heard a clock down in the hall strike the hours . The clock had struck twelve , and she had not heard Dr. Ellridge go . The whole situation filled her with a sort of wonder of disgust . She could not imagine her mother and Dr. Ellridge sitting up until midnight as she might sit up with George Ramsey . She felt as if she were witnessing a ghastly inversion of things , as if Love , instead of being in his proper panoply of wings and roses , was invested with a medicine-case , an obsolete frock-coat , and elderly obesity . Dr. Ellridge was quite stout . She wondered how her mother could , and then she wondered how Dr. Ellridge could .