three o'clock
And about one o'clock Madame Foucault , disarrayed , would come to inquire if the servant had attended to the needs of the invalid . Then the odours of cookery would accentuate themselves ; bells rang ; fragments of conversations escaped through doors ajar ; occasionally a man 's voice or a heavy step ; then the fragrance of coffee ; sometimes the sound of a kiss , the banging of the front door , the noise of brushing , or of the shaking of a carpet , a little scream as at some trifling domestic contretemps . Laurence , still in a dressing-gown , would lounge into Sophia 's room , dirty , haggard , but polite with a curious stiff ceremony , and would drink her coffee there . This wandering in peignoirs would continue till three o'clock , and then Laurence might say , as if nerving herself to an unusual and immense effort : `` I must be dressed by five o'clock . I have not a moment . '' Often Madame Foucault did not dress at all ; on such days she would go to bed immediately after dinner , with the remark that she did n't know what was the matter with her , but she was exhausted . And then the servant would retire to her seventh floor , and there would be silence until , now and then , faint creepings were heard at midnight or after .