one o'clock
Ninety-fifth Street was a lonely lane of midnight quiet . He sped across it like the shadow of a cloud wind-hunted . In those days New York nights were long ; this was still young when Lanyard sauntered sedately from a side street and stopped on a corner of Broadway in the Nineties ; he had not long to wait ere a southbound taxicab hove in sight and sheered over to the curb in answer to his signal . It was still something short of one o'clock when he was set down at his door . Wearily he let himself in by the private entrance , made a light , and without troubling even to discard his overcoat threw himself into a chair . Leaden depression weighed down his heart , and the flavour of failure was as aloes in his mouth . Thrice within an hour he had fallen short of his promises , to Cecelia Brooke , to himself , to his _ idée fixe _ .