midnight
Herself almost completely without physical fear , she was unable to understand , and so she made the most of what she felt to be his fear 's redeeming feature , which was that though he was a coward under a shock and a coward under a strain -- when his imagination was given play -- he had yet a sort of dashing recklessness that moved her on its brief occasions almost to admiration , and a pride that usually steadied him when he thought he was observed . The trait first showed itself in a dozen incidents of little more than nervousness -- his warning to a taxi-driver against fast driving , in Chicago ; his refusal to take her to a certain tough café she had always wished to visit ; these of course admitted the conventional interpretation -- that it was of her he had been thinking ; nevertheless , their culminative weight disturbed her . But something that occurred in a San Francisco hotel , when they had been married a week , gave the matter certainty . It was after midnight and pitch dark in their room . Gloria was dozing off and Anthony 's even breathing beside her made her suppose that he was asleep , when suddenly she saw him raise himself on his elbow and stare at the window . `` What is it , dearest ? '' she murmured .