nine o'clock
He did not want persons to be kind ; that suggested charity , or pity . No ; he wanted exactly what he earned -- what he could take with his bare hands and his bare soul . He wanted equality -- or nothing ; and if at the end of his struggle it had to be nothing , all right -- but the end was not yet . Toward nine o'clock the deck party began to break up . Some one had suggested bridge , and some opposed the suggestion . At the end of a laughing discussion Oddington and three others went to the smoking-room , while the rest dispersed in various directions . Dan , filled with his thoughts , was in the act of lighting his pipe , when the clicking of footfalls and the rustling of skirts sounded on the bridge steps .