midnight
He no longer feared to be watched ; and the very fact that , as far as he could see , he was n't watched , only added fuel to his resentment , demonstrating as it did so patently the cynical assurance of the Pack that they had him cornered , without alternative other than to supple himself to their will . To the driver of the first taxicab he met , Lanyard said `` L'Abbaye , '' then shutting himself within the conveyance , surrendered to the most morose reflections . Nothing of this mood was , however , apparent in his manner on alighting . He bore a countenance of amiable insouciance through the portals of this festal institution whose proudest boast and -- incidentally -- sole claim to uniquity is that it never opens its doors before midnight nor closes them before dawn . He had moved about with such celerity since entering his flat on the rue Roget that it was even now only two o'clock ; an hour at which revelry might be expected to have reached its apogee in this , the soi-disant `` smartest '' place in Paris . A less sophisticated adventurer might have been flattered by the cordiality of his reception at the hands of that arbiter elegantiarum the maitre-d'hôtel . `` Ah-h , Monsieur Lanya _ rrr _ !