twenty minutes after eight
on Thursday, June 10, 1919
CHAPTER 2 . Experiments in Convalescence The Knickerbocker Bar , beamed upon by Maxfield Parrish 's jovial , colorful `` Old King Cole , '' was well crowded . Amory stopped in the entrance and looked at his wrist-watch ; he wanted particularly to know the time , for something in his mind that catalogued and classified liked to chip things off cleanly . Later it would satisfy him in a vague way to be able to think `` that thing ended at exactly twenty minutes after eight on Thursday , June 10 , 1919 . '' This was allowing for the walk from her house -- a walk concerning which he had afterward not the faintest recollection . He was in rather grotesque condition : two days of worry and nervousness , of sleepless nights , of untouched meals , culminating in the emotional crisis and Rosalind 's abrupt decision -- the strain of it had drugged the foreground of his mind into a merciful coma . As he fumbled clumsily with the olives at the free-lunch table , a man approached and spoke to him , and the olives dropped from his nervous hands .