midnight
`` My name is Richard Yates , and I come from New York . I am camping out in this neighborhood to relieve , as it were , a mental strain -- the result of years of literary work . '' Yates knew from long experience that the quickest and surest road to a woman 's confidence was through her sympathy . `` Mental strain '' struck him as a good phrase , indicating midnight oil and the hollow eye of the devoted student . `` Is your work mental , then ? '' asked Margaret incredulously , flashing , for the first time , a dark-eyed look at him . `` Yes , '' Yates laughed uneasily .