Five o'clock in the afternoon
`` But what 's your opinion regarding Breitmann ? '' Cathewe laced his fingers and bent his chin on them . `` There 's a great rascal or a great hero somewhere under his skin . '' Five o'clock in the afternoon , and a mild blue sea flashing under the ever-deepening orange of the falling sun . Golden castles and gray castles and castles of shadowed-white billowed in the east ; turrets rose and subsided and spires of cloud-cities formed and re-formed . The yacht _ Laura _ , sleek and swan-white , her ensign and colors folding and unfolding , lifting and sinking , as the shore breeze stirred them , was making ready for sea ; and many of the villagers had come down to the water front to see her off . Very few sea-going vessels , outside of freighters , ever stopped in this harbor ; and naturally the departures of the yacht were events equalled only by her arrivals .