one minute to
four
He panted `` Press m ' suit while I wait ? '' They gave him a pair of temporary trousers , an undesirable pair of trousers belonging to a short fat man with no taste in fabrics , and with these flapping about his lean legs , he sat behind a calico curtain , reading _ The War Cry _ and looking at a `` fashion-plate '' depicting nine gentlemen yachtsmen each nine feet tall , while the Jugoslav in charge unfeelingly sprinkled and ironed and patted his suit . He spent ten minutes in blacking his shoes , in his room -- and twenty minutes in getting the blacking off his fingers . He was walking through the gate in the Gilson hedge at one minute to four . But he had reached Queen Anne Hill at three . For an hour he had walked the crest road , staring at the steamers below , alternately gripping his hands with desire of Claire , and timorously finally deciding that he would n't go to her house -- would n't ever see her again . He came into the hall tremblingly expecting some great thing , some rending scene , and she met him with a cool , `` Oh , this is nice .