one
o'clock at night
But what hard treatment , even what beating , could be so unendurable as this total want of sympathy , as this deadness in life , which her present lot entailed upon her ? As for that matter of beating , she ridiculed the idea in her very soul . She sat smiling at the absurdity of the thing as she thought of the beauty of Burgo 's eyes , of the softness of his touch , of the loving , almost worshipping , tones of his voice . Would it not even be better to be beaten by him than to have politics explained to her at one o'clock at night by such a husband as Plantagenet Palliser ? The British Constitution , indeed ! Had she married Burgo they would have been in sunny Italy , and he would have told her some other tale than that as they sat together under the pale moonlight . She had a little water-coloured drawing called Raphael and Fornarina , and she was infantine enough to tell herself that the so-called Raphael was like her Burgo -- no , not her Burgo , but the Burgo that was not hers .