midnight
There is something I must tell you tonight , my dear . '' `` My dear ! '' she exclaimed bitterly , now seeming to rouse herself with an effort and pretending to put back a stray wisp of her dark hair in order to hide from him the tears that still lingered on her flushed cheeks . `` You can say that , Carlton , when it has been every night the same old threadbare excuse of working at the office until midnight ? '' She set her face in hard lines , but could not catch his eye . `` Carlton Dunlap , '' she added in a tone that rasped his very soul , `` I am nobody 's fool . I may not know much about bookkeeping and accounting , but I can add -- and two and two , when the same man but different women compose each two , do not make four , according to my arithmetic , but three , from which , '' -- she finished almost hysterically the little speech she had prepared , but it seemed to fall flat before the man 's curiously altered manner -- `` from which I shall subtract one . ''