four o'clock
She tried to meet him in lighter vein after that , dressing her most bizarrely , and greeting him one night in a batik gown , a new process of dyeing that could be flamboyant and narrative in design . This one , a long , sinuous robe that enveloped her slimness like a flame , beginning down around the train in a sullen smoke and rushing up to her face in a burst of crimson . He thought her so exquisitely rare that he was not above the poor , soggy device of drinking his dinner wine from the cup of her small crimson slipper , and she dangled on his knee like the dangerous little flame she none too subtly purported to be , and he spanked her quickly and softly across the wrists because she was too nervous to hold the match steadily enough for his cigar to take light , and then kissed away all the mock sting . But the next morning , at the fateful four o'clock , and in spite of four sleeping-drops , Lottie on the cot at the foot of her bed , and the night light burning , she awoke on the crest of such a shriek that a stiletto might have slit the silence , the end of the sheet crammed up and into her mouth , and , ignoring all of Lottie 's calming , sat up on her knees , her streaming eyes on the jointure of wall and ceiling , where the open , accusing ones of Gerald looked down at her . It was not that they were terrible eyes . They were full of the sweet blue , and clear as lakes . It was only that they knew .