midnight
The purely physical craving to take this man and crush him into eternal quiescence had given place to a more terrible mental desire to punish . His brain surged and surged under the first flood of a mortal hatred . That the hatred was sterile made it the more intense , and , blinded by it , he stood there or paced the room minute after minute , hearing nothing but the wild clamour in his brain , seeing nothing but the smooth , expressionless face of the man whom he could not reach . Toward midnight , seated in his chair by the window , a deathly lassitude weighing his heart , he heard the steps of people on the stairway , the click of the ascending elevator , gay voices calling good night , a ripple of laughter , the silken swish of skirts in the corridor , doors opening and closing ; then silence creeping throughout the house on the receding heels of departure -- a stillness that settled like a mist through hall and corridor , accented for a few moments by distant sounds , then absolute , echoless silence . And for a long while he sat there listening . The cool wind from the ocean blew his curtains far into the room , where they bellied out , fluttering , floating , subsiding , only to rise again in the freshening breeze . He sat watching their silken convolutions , stupidly , for a while , then rose and closed his window , and raised the window on the south for purposes of air .