ten
minutes to twelve
I may have added to it by my imaginative participation . In any case my understanding as interpreter was the prime essential -- a fact that shows how absurd it is to speak of `` photographic detail '' in literature , or indeed to attempt a proper differentiation between realism and romance . We were all of us in the Hall , an inattentive , chattering audience of between twenty and thirty people . The last dance had been stopped at ten minutes to twelve , in order that the local parson and his wife -- their name was Sturton -- might be out of the house of entertainment before the first stroke of Sunday morning . Every one was wound up to a pitch of satisfied excitement . The Cinderella had been a success . The floor and the music and the supper had been good , Mrs. Jervaise had thrown off her air of pre-occupation with some distasteful suspicion , and we had all been entertained and happy .