one o'clock
Looking into his eyes , she was aware of a mystery half understood , and she could not but feel that this enigma , this mystery , was essential to her . Her life seemed to depend upon it ; she seemed to have come upon the secret at last . It was amusing to walk home to dinner together this bright summer 's day , and to tell this young man , to whose intervention it pleased her to think that she owed her reconciliation to her father , how it was by pretending not to understand the new harpsichord that she had inveigled her father into speaking to her ... . But it was only one o'clock -- an hour still remained before dinner would be ready at Dowlands , and they were glad to dream it under the delicious chestnut trees . She sat intent , moving the tiny bloom from side to side with her parasol , thinking of her father . Suddenly she told Ulick of the Wotan and Brunnhilde scene , which she had always played , while thinking of the real scene that one day awaited her at her father 's feet , and this scene she had at last acted , if you could call reality acting . She was dimly aware of the old Dulwich street , and that she had once trundled her hoop there , and the humble motion of life beneath the chestnut trees , the loitering of stout housewives and husbands in Sunday clothes , the spare figures of spinsters who lived in the damp houses which lay at the back of the choked gardens was accepted as a suitable background for her happiness .