midnight
-LRB- Hither , and play with me , stranger ! -RRB- Men say Yasmini does not sleep . Of course , that is absurd . None the less , it is certain she must do much of her plotting in the daytime , for by night , until after midnight , she is always the Yasmini whom the Northern gentry know , at home to all comers in her wonderful apartment . It is ever a mystery to them how she knows all that is going on in Delhi , and in India , and in the greater outer world , although they themselves bring her information that no government could ever suck out of the silent hills . They know where she keeps her cobras -- where the strong-box is , in which her jewels lie crowded -- who run her errands -- and some of her past history , for not even a mongoose is more inquisitive than a man born in the hills , and Yasmini has many maids . But none -- not even her favorite , most confidential maids -- know what is in the little room that she reaches down a private flight of stairs that have a steel door at the top .