twelve o'clock
He opened out the pages with a slowness that seemed almost apathy , while the man opposite clinched his hands on the table spasmodically . Still the music from the other room with cheap , flippant sensuousness stole through the burdened air : `` Singing , it will flourish till the world 's last year -- '' He looked at the writing vaguely , blindly . Why should this be exacted of him , this futile penalty ? Then all at once his sight cleared ; for this handwriting was not his -- this letter was not his ; these wild , passionate phrases -- this terrible suggestiveness of meaning , these references to the past , this appeal for further hours of love together , this abjectly tender appeal to Jasmine that she would wear one of his white roses when he saw her the next day -- would she not see him between eleven and twelve o'clock ? -- all these words were not his . They were written by the man who was playing the piano in the next room ; by the man who had come and gone in this house like one who had the right to do so ; who had , as it were , fed from Rudyard Byng 's hand ; who lived on what Byng paid him ; who had been trusted with the innermost life of the household and the life and the business of the master of it . The letter was signed , Adrian .