midnight
A few years ago he would have been horrified at it all , but the fine quality of this first sensitiveness had been blunted since his experience at college . He tolerated these things in his friends now . Gradually Vandover allowed his ideas and tastes to be moulded by this new order of things . He assumed the manners of these young men of the city , very curious to see for himself the other lower side of their life that began after midnight in the private rooms of fast cafés and that was continued in the heavy musk-laden air of certain parlours amid the rustle of heavy silks . Slowly the fascination of this thing grew upon him until it mounted to a veritable passion . His strong artist 's imagination began to be filled with a world of charming sensuous pictures . He commenced to chafe under his innate respect and deference for women , to resent and to despise it .