eight o'clock
Silas , often as he had been in Charleston , had never put foot in a street car ; even a hired conveyance was against the prejudices of these gentlemen . This antagonism towards public means of locomotion was not in the least the outcome of snobbishness or pride ; they had come from a race of people accustomed to move in a small orbit in their own particular way , an exclusive people , breeders and lovers of horses , a people to whom locomotion had always meant pride in the means and the method ; to take a seat in a stuffy railway car at so much a mile , to grab a ticket and squeeze into a tram car , to drive in a cab drawn by an indifferent horse would have been hateful to these people ; it was scarcely less so to their descendants . So Silas came to Charleston driving a pair of absolutely matched chestnuts , a coloured manservant in the Grangerson livery in attendance . After dinner he strolled into the bar of the hotel , met some friends , made some bets on the forthcoming races and at eight o'clock retired upstairs to dress . He was one of the first of the guests to arrive . The Rhetts ' house in Legare Street was about the same size as Vernons and equally old , but it had not the same charm , the garden was much larger than that at Vernons , but it had not the same touch of the past . Houses , like people , have personalities and the house of the Rhetts had a telephone without resenting the intruder , electric everythings , even to an elevator , modern cookers , modern stoves , everything in a modern way to save labour and make life easy , and all so cunningly and craftily done that the air of antiquity was supposed not to be disturbed .