midnight
People of this sort : Mademoiselle Cerise , Madame Juliette , Mademoiselle Victorine -- what were they to him , or to themselves ? There flashed through his brain three pictures : when he stood by the bedside of the old dying Esquimaux in Labrador , and took a girl 's hand in his ; when among the flowers at Peppingham he heard Delia say : `` Oh , Gaston ! Gaston ! '' and Alice 's face at midnight in the moonlit window at Ridley Court . How strange this figure -- spangled , gaudy , standing among her lions -- seemed by these . To think of her , his veins thumping thus , was an insult to all three : to Delia , one unpardonable . And yet he could not take his eyes off her .