nine o'clock
`` If he 's such a grand business man , how does he have time to run around listening to singing-lessons ? '' Thea asked suspiciously . As she went home to her boarding-house through the February slush , she wished she were going to dine with them . At nine o'clock she looked up from her grammar to wonder what Bowers and Ottenburg were having to eat . At that moment they were talking of her . THEA noticed that Bowers took rather more pains with her now that Fred Ottenburg often dropped in at eleven-thirty to hear her lesson . After the lesson the young man took Bowers off to lunch with him , and Bowers liked good food when another man paid for it .