nearly eight o'clock
He was going to the equator to get away from her , but to repudiate the past with some decency of form he must show an affected interest , if he could muster none other , in an occasion that meant so much for her . The least intimate of her associates would do that , and Peter remembered how , at the expense of good manners , he had stayed away from her first appearance on any stage at all . He would have been shocked had he found himself obliged to go back to Paris without giving her at the imminent crisis the personal countenance she had so good a right to expect . It was nearly eight o'clock when he went to Great Stanhope Street to dress for dinner and learn that a note awaiting him on the hall-table and which bore the marks of hasty despatch had come three or four hours before . It exhibited the signature of Miriam Rooth and let him know that she positively expected him at the theatre by eleven o'clock the next morning , for which hour a dress-rehearsal of the revived play had been hurriedly projected , the first night being now definitely fixed for the impending Saturday . She counted on his attendance at both ceremonies , but with particular reasons for wishing to see him in the morning . `` I want you to see and judge and tell me , '' she said , `` for my mind 's like a flogged horse -- it wo n't give another kick . ''