midnight
`` What do you think of that ? '' he asked , showing her a good likeness of himself as she remembered him . `` I was a pretty boy then , I think , with my curls ! Burning the midnight oil had not bared my forehead in those days , and my beard had not grown . Life was all poetry then ! '' he sighed affectedly . What had once been spontaneous feeling in him had become a mere recollection , only to be called up by an effort .