two o’clock in the morning
She was sitting in the shadow by the window , buried in a wide arm-chair ... I pitied her . Then I related the whole dramatic story of our acquaintanceship , our love -- concealing it all , of course , under fictitious names . So vividly did I portray my tenderness , my anxieties , my raptures ; in so favourable a light did I exhibit her actions and her character , that involuntarily she had to forgive me for my flirtation with Princess Mary . She rose , sat down beside us , and brightened up ... and it was only at two o'clock in the morning that we remembered that the doctors had ordered her to go to bed at eleven . CHAPTER X. 13th June . HALF an hour before the ball , Grushnitski presented himself to me in the full splendour of the uniform of the Line infantry . Attached to his third button was a little bronze chain , on which hung a double lorgnette .