half past seven
`` Your English custom of coming down at half past eight to eat poached eggs and bacon is perfectly detestable . '' She waved her teaspoon in Nora 's face , and Nora reflected -- though her sunburnt countenance was still severe -- that Connie was never so attractive as when , in the freshest of white dressing-gowns , propped among the lace and silk of her ridiculous pillows and bedspreads , she was toying with the coffee and roll which Annette brought her at eight o'clock , as she had been accustomed to bring it since Connie was a child . Mrs. Hooper had clearly expressed her disapproval of such habits , but neither Annette nor Connie had paid any attention . Annette had long since come to an understanding with the servants , and it was she who descended at half past seven , made the coffee herself , and brought up with it the nearest thing to the morning rolls of the Palazzo Barberini which Oxford could provide -- with a copy of _ The Times _ specially ordered for Lady Constance . The household itself subsisted on a copy of the _ Morning Post _ , religiously reserved to Mrs. Hooper after Dr. Hooper had glanced through it -- he , of course , saw _ The Times _ at the Union . But Connie regarded a newspaper at breakfast as a necessary part of life . After her coffee , accordingly , she read _ The Times _ , and smoked a cigarette , proceedings which were a daily source of wonder to Nora and reprobation in the minds of Mrs. Hooper and Alice .