six o'clock
* * * * * Three or four days later he , Catherine and Mary were at Petites Dalles , a little place on the Norman coast , near Fécamp , with which he had first made acquaintance years before , when he was at Oxford . Here all that in London had been oppressive in the August heat suffered ` a sea change , ' and became so much matter for physical delight . It was fiercely hot indeed . Every morning , between five and six o'clock , Catherine would stand by the little white-veiled window , in the dewy silence , to watch the eastern shadows spreading sharply already into a blazing world of sun , and see the tall poplar just outside shooting into a quivering changeless depth of blue . Then , as early as possible , they would sally forth before the glare became unbearable . The first event of the day was always Mary 's bathe , which gradually became a spectacle for the whole beach , so ingenious were the blandishments of the father who wooed her into the warm sandy shallows , and so beguiling the glee and pluck of the two-year-old English _ bébé _ . By eleven the heat out of doors grew intolerable , and they would stroll back -- father and mother and trailing child -- past the hotels on the _ plage _ , along the irregular village lane , to the little house where they had established themselves , with Mary 's nurse and a French _ bonne _ to look after them ; would find the green wooden shutters drawn close ; the _ déjeuner _ waiting for them in the cool bare room ; and the scent of the coffee penetrating from the kitchen , where the two maids kept up a dumb but perpetual warfare .