five in the afternoon
The happiness of his grand-daughter seemed to him so doubtful if he delivered her into the hands of the proud and haughty Marquise de Cinq-Cygne that he decided in his own mind to trust to the friend of old age , Time . He hoped that his bitter enemy the marquise might die , and , in that case , he thought he could win the son through his grandfather , old d'Hauteserre , who was then living at Cinq-Cygne and whom he knew to be accessible to the persuasions of money . If this plan failed , and Cecile Beauvisage remained unmarried , he resolved as a last resort to consult his friend Gondreville , who would , he believed , find his Cecile a husband , after his heart and his ambition , among the dukes of the Empire . Severine found her father seated on a wooden bench at the end of his terrace , under a bower of lilacs then in bloom , and taking his coffee ; for it was half-past five in the afternoon . She saw , by the pain on her father 's face , that he had already heard the news . In fact , the old count had sent a valet to his friend , begging him to come to him . Up to the present time , old Grevin had endeavored not to encourage his daughter 's ambition too far ; but now , in the midst of the contradictory reflections which the melancholy death of Charles Keller caused him , his secret escaped his lips .