a quarter to
seven
` In the days when I was simple-minded , a foreigner in a fur coat and an eyeglass once stopped me in the Boulevard des Italiens and asked if I could give him the address of any house where a roulette-table was kept ! After that I took to jewels and dress ! ' Margaret wondered why she could not help liking him ; and by sheer force of habit she thought that he would make a very good-looking stage Romeo . While she was thinking of that and smiling in spite of his tie , the old clock in the hall below chimed the hour , and it was a quarter to seven ; and at the same moment three men were getting out of a train that had stopped at the Craythew station , three miles from Lord Creedmore 's gate . The daylight dinner was over , and the large party was more or less scattered about the drawing-room and the adjoining picture-gallery in groups of three and four , mostly standing while they drank their coffee , and continued or finished the talk begun at table . By force of habit Margaret had stopped beside the closed piano , and had seated herself on the old-fashioned stool to have her coffee . Lady Maud stood beside her , leaning against the corner of the instrument , her cup in her hand , and the two young women exchanged rather idle observations about the lovely day that was over , and the perfect weather .