midnight
After he had gone -- or rather after she had dismissed him -- she took a book upstairs to wait for Howard , but she could not read . At times she wished she had rebuked Trixton Brent more forcibly , although he was not an easy person to rebuke ; and again she reflected that , had she taken the matter too seriously , she would have laid herself open to his ridicule . The lion was often unwittingly rough , and perhaps that was part of his fascination . If Howard had come home before midnight it is possible that she might have tried to sound him as to his relations with Trixton Brent . That gentleman , she remembered , had the reputation of being a peculiarly hardheaded business man , and it was of course absurd that he should offer her husband a position merely to please her . And her imagination failed her when she tried to think of Howard as the president of a trust company . She was unable to picture him in a great executive office : This train of thought led her to the unaccustomed task of analyzing his character .