eight o'clock
`` Bully ! And that 's why I want to have dinner with you alone . I 've got used to the self-sufficient woman -- I like her . '' It was long after eight o'clock , that first evening , when Northrup left his mother 's house . So powerfully hypnotic is memory that as he walked along in the bland summer night he shivered and recalled the snowstorm that blotted him out after his last interview with Kathryn . With all earnestness he had prepared himself for this hour . He was ready to take up his life and live it well -- only so could he justify what he had endured .