eight o'clock
The feeling may have had its rise partly in the fear instilled into his boyhood , partly in the yielding nature of his disposition . However that might be , it was a fact ; and Val could no more have openly opposed the resolute , sharp-tongued old woman to her face than he could have changed his nature . He rarely called her anything but `` ma'am , '' as their nurse had taught him and his brothers and sisters to do in those long-past years . Before eight o'clock the guests had all assembled in the drawing-room , except the countess-dowager and Maude . Lord Hartledon was going about amongst them , talking to one and another of the beauties of this , his late father 's place ; scarcely yet thought of as his own . He was a tall slender man ; in figure very much resembling Percival , but not in face : the one was dark , the other fair . There was also the same indolent sort of movement , a certain languid air discernible in both ; proclaiming the undoubted fact , that both were idle in disposition and given to ennui .