midnight
The end of the ancestor 's career had been in keeping with its character and course . He had been spared the slow decay of faculties in armchair reminiscence . He had gone down in his ship without striking his colors , fighting the Spaniards one to three . When Jack closed the cover on the last page tenderly and in enraptured understanding , it was past midnight . The spaciousness of the sea under clouds of battle smoke had melted into the spaciousness of the desert under the Eternal Painter 's canopy . Then four walls of a bedroom in Madison Avenue materialized , shutting out the horizon ; a carpet in place of sand formed the floor ; and in place of a blanket roll was a canopied bed upon which a servant had laid out a suit of pajamas . In the impulse of a desire to look into the face of the first John Wingfield in the light of all he now knew , Jack went downstairs , and in the silence of the house drank in the portrait again .