midnight
That he kept at first at a distance from her , and but looked on with this secret exultant glow in his bad , beauteous eyes , told her that at last he felt he held some power in his hands , against which all her defiance would be as naught . Till this hour , though she had suffered , and when alone had writhed in agony of grief and bitter shame , in his presence she had never flinched . Her strength she knew was greater than his ; but his baseness was his weapon , and the depths of that baseness she knew she had never reached . At midnight , having just made obeisance before Royalty retiring , she felt that at length he had drawn near and was standing at her side . `` To-night , '' he said , in the low undertone it was his way to keep for such occasions , knowing how he could pierce her ear -- `` to-night you are Juno 's self -- a very Queen of Heaven ! '' She made no answer . `` And I have stood and watched you moving among all lesser goddesses as the moon sails among the stars , and I have smiled in thinking of what these lesser deities would say if they had known what I bear in my breast to-night . ''