midnight
_ Quelle pudeur ! _ '' he more than once observed , as her knock drew him towards the door . His lunch he took wherever he happened to be , and he dined at his French restaurant , or at a new Italian one where the _ spaghetti _ was unapproachable , and where everything was cheap , plentiful , and informal . He returned home at his own discretion , and sometimes was heard working upon the obdurate old night-lock at midnight or later . Among the first of the family to have extended speech with him after the _ exposé _ was his aunt Lydia . He had gone to her house to put the last few finishing touches to Bertie Patterson 's portrait . To his aunt and to Bertie herself the portrait seemed already finished , but it is only the artist who knows when the end has really been reached .