noon
The first of these -- although it was one which he may have been far from suspecting -- was his equipment of youth , wealth , and good digestion ; the second was that he had achieved honour and renown both upon the Spanish Main and in the late harrying of the Invincible Armada -- or , more aptly perhaps might it be said , in the harrying of the late Invincible Armada -- and that he had received in that the twenty-fifth year of his life the honour of knighthood from the Virgin Queen ; the third and last contributor to his pleasant mood -- and I have reserved it for the end as I account this to be the proper place for the most important factor -- was Dan Cupid who for once seemed compounded entirely of benignity and who had so contrived matters that Sir Oliver 's wooing Of Mistress Rosamund Godolphin ran an entirely smooth and happy course . So , then , Sir Oliver sat at his ease in his tall , carved chair , his doublet untrussed , his long legs stretched before him , a pensive smile about the firm lips that as yet were darkened by no more than a small black line of moustachios . -LRB- Lord Henry 's portrait of him was drawn at a much later period . -RRB- It was noon , and our gentleman had just dined , as the platters , the broken meats and the half-empty flagon on the board beside him testified . He pulled thoughtfully at a long pipe -- for he had acquired this newly imported habit of tobacco-drinking -- and dreamed of his mistress , and was properly and gallantly grateful that fortune had used him so handsomely as to enable him to toss a title and some measure of renown into his Rosamund 's lap . By nature Sir Oliver was a shrewd fellow -LRB- `` cunning as twenty devils , '' is my Lord Henry 's phrase -RRB- and he was also a man of some not inconsiderable learning . Yet neither his natural wit nor his acquired endowments appear to have taught him that of all the gods that rule the destinies of mankind there is none more ironic and malicious than that same Dan Cupid in whose honour , as it were , he was now burning the incense of that pipe of his .