midnight
Especially women of a certain age . A heavy cart seemed to be rumbling in the next street . No , it was thunder . If only a good rattling storm would sweep the bituminous atmosphere , and allow a breath of pure air before midnight . She could not be far from thirty . Of course there prevails much conventional nonsense about women 's age ; there are plenty of women who reckon four decades , and yet retain all the essential charm of their sex . And as a man gets older , as he begins to persuade himself that at forty one has scarce reached the prime of life -- The storm was coming on in earnest .