about five in the afternoon
He thought he had done nothing to deserve the one , and he would do almost anything to escape the other . She was a nice pleasant quiet girl ; but nice pleasant quiet girls were beginning to do such equivocal things in poetical print ! Having returned to town by a method that put the minimum tax on his powers , Cope was in shape , next day , for an hour on the faculty tennis-courts . He played with no special skill or vigor , but he made a pleasing picture in his flannels ; and Carolyn , who happened to pass -- who passed by at about five in the afternoon , lingered for the spectacle and thought of two or three lines to start a poem with . Cope , unconscious of this , presently turned his attention to Lemoyne , who was on the eve of his first dress rehearsal and who was a good deal occupied with wigs and lingerie . Here one detail leads to another , and anyone who goes in wholeheartedly may go in dreadfully deep . Their room came to be strown with all the disconcerting items of a theatrical wardrobe .