midnight
Even beauty was cherished by the Church , and the fair Madonnas were types of an admiring love that was beautifully catholic in its worship . With all this , the work of conversion was a Penelope 's web , that must each day be begun anew , for , as the hour of the Cascini drew nigh , Lady Hester 's carriage drew up , and mesmerism , miracles , and all gave way to the fresher interests of courtly loungers , chit-chat , and `` bouquets of camellias . '' For the next hour or so , her mind was occupied with the gossiping stories of Florentine life , its surface details all recounted by the simpering dandies who gathered around her carriage ; its deeper not unfrequently darker histories being the province of Mr. Albert Jekyl . Then home to luncheon , for , as Haggerstone related , she dined always after the Opera , and it was then , somewhere verging on midnight , that she really began to live . Then , in all the blaze of dress and jewels , with beauty little impaired by years , and a manner the perfection of that peculiar school to which she attached herself , she was indeed a most attractive person . Kate Dalton 's life was , of course , precisely the same . Except the few hours given to controversial topics , and which she passed in reading , and the occasional change from driving to riding in the Cascini , Kate 's day was exactly that of her friend .