five o'clock
You may not believe me , Conrad , but I am really ill . '' The Captain put on an unhappy look , and murmured something sympathetic : but he did not believe in the reality of his wife 's ailments . She had played the invalid more or less ever since their marriage ; and he had grown accustomed to the assumption as a part of his wife 's daily existence -- a mere idiosyncrasy , like her love of fine dress and strong tea . If at dinner she ate hardly enough for a bird , he concluded that she had spoiled her appetite at luncheon , or by the consumption of sweet biscuits and pound-cake at five o'clock . Her refusal of all invitations to dinners and garden-parties he attributed to her folly about dress , and to that alone . Those other reasons which she put forward -- of weakness , languor , low spirits -- were to Captain Winstanley 's mind mere disguises for temper . She had not , in her heart of hearts , forgiven him for closing Madame Theodore 's account .