midnight
He was apparently in the kitchen , cleaning away our meal , to judge by the rattling of his pans . It was as yet not much after hour eight of the evening . The hours before my tryst with Jetta seemed an interminable time to wait . She might not come , though , I was afraid , until midnight . At all events I felt that I had some hours yet . And it occurred to me that the evening was not yet too far advanced for me to call upon Perona . He lived not far from here , I had learned .