midnight
On the floor above he heard the solid tramp of military boots belonging to his neighbor , Captain Stephen Fraser-Freer , of the Twelfth Cavalry , Indian Army , home on furlough from that colony beyond the seas . It was from that room overhead that romance and mystery were to come in mighty store ; but Geoffrey West little suspected it at the moment . Hardly knowing what to say , but gaining inspiration as he went along , he wrote the first of seven letters to the lady at the Carlton . And the epistle he dropped in the post box at midnight follows here : DEAR LADY OF THE GRAPEFRUIT : You are very kind . Also , you are wise . Wise , because into my clumsy little Personal you read nothing that was not there . You knew it immediately for what it was -- the timid tentative clutch of a shy man at the skirts of Romance in passing .