eleven
o'clock
He had seen many women who were beautiful , and some who were brilliant , but it had been easy to forget every one of them ; they hardly made a ripple in the stream of his work , and often it was an effort to recall them . He had expected to dismiss this Idaho girl in the same manner , but she would not go , and he was intensely annoyed with himself . He went to the telegraph-office , wrote and filed his despatch , and then , lighting a cigar , strolled slowly through the streets . It was not eleven o'clock , but it seemed that everybody except himself was in bed and asleep . The lights in all the houses were out , and there was no sound whatever save that of the wind as it came in from the prairie and stirred the new foliage of the trees . `` And this is our wicked America , for which my foreign friends used to offer me sincere condolences ! '' murmured Harley .