seven o'clock
`` They are going south-east , '' said Nevill . If Victoria Ray had accepted Nevill Caird 's invitation to be Lady MacGregor 's guest and his , at Djenan el Djouad , many things might have been different . But she had wished to be independent , and had chosen to go to the Hotel de la Kasbah . When she went down to dinner in the _ salle à manger _ , shortly after seven o'clock on the evening of her arrival , only two other tables were occupied , for it was late in the season , and tourists were leaving Algiers . No one who had been on board the _ Charles Quex _ was there , and Victoria saw that she was the only woman in the room . At one table sat a happy party of Germans , apparently dressed from head to foot by Dr. Jaeger , and at another were two middle-aged men who had the appearance of commercial travellers . By and by an elderly Jew came in , and dinner had reached the stage of peppery mutton ragout , when the door opened again .