four o'clock
Moreover , he no longer chastised her when she came . His ideals had left him , one by one ; he now lived alone , immune from dignity and shame , soothing himself with whisky . A man of rancour , meet for pity , and , in his cups , contented . He had lunched freely before coming to Blanca 's Christmas function , but by four o'clock , the gases which had made him feel the world a pleasant place had nearly all evaporated , and he was suffering from a wish to drink again . Or it may have been that this girl , with her soft look , gave him the feeling that she ought to have belonged to him ; and as she did not , he felt , perhaps , a natural irritation that she belonged , or might belong , to somebody else . Or , again , it was possibly his natural male distaste for the works of women painters which induced an awkward frame of mind . Two days later in a daily paper over no signature , appeared this little paragraph : `` We learn that ` The Shadow , ' painted by Bianca Stone , who is not generally known to be the wife of the writer , Mr. Hilary Dallison , will soon be exhibited at the Bencox Gallery .