noon
-- Number One . ' '' _ Reviewing the day , as she undressed and prepared for bed , Sofia told herself she had never yet lived through one so wearing , and thought the history of its irksome hours all too legible in the lack-lustre face that looked back from the mirror when Chou Nu uncoifed her hair and brushed its burnished tresses . Though she had slept late , in fact till noon and something after , her sleep had been queerly haunted and unhappy , she could not remember how or why , and she had awakened already ennuyé , with a mind incoherently oppressed , without relish for the promise of the day -- in a mood altogether as drear as the daylight that waited upon her unclosing eyes . Main strength of will had not availed to dispel these vapours , neither did their melancholy yield to the distraction provided by first acquaintance with ways of a world unique alike in Sofia 's esteem and her experience . She who had theretofore known only in day-dreams the life of light frivolity and fashion which found feverish and trumpery reflection at Frampton Court , was neither equipped nor disposed to be hypercritical in the first hours of her début there ; and at any other time , in any other temper , she knew , she must have been swept off her feet by its exciting appeal to her innate love of luxury and sensation . But the sad truth was , it all seemed to her unillusioned vision an elaborate sham built up of tinsel , paste , and paint ; and the warmth of her welcome at the hands , indeed in the very arms , of Lady Randolph West , and the success her youth and beauty scored for her -- commanding in all envy , admiration , cupidity , or jealousy , according to age , sex , and temporal state of servitude -- did nothing to mitigate the harshness of those first impressions .