midnight
`` Well , no ; not just at present . '' `` I declare I do n't think he could do anything better , '' her cousin said to her that night . Lady Glencora was now in the habit of having Alice with her in what she called her dressing-room every evening , and then they would sit till the small hours came upon them . Mr. Palliser always burnt the midnight oil and came to bed with the owls . They would often talk of him and his prospects till Alice had perhaps inspired his wife with more of interest in him and them than she had before felt . And Alice had managed generally to drive her friend away from those topics which were so dangerous , -- those allusions to her childlessness , and those hints that Burgo Fitzgerald was still in her thoughts . And sometimes , of course , they had spoken of Alice 's own prospects , till she got into a way of telling her cousin freely all that she felt .