eleven o’clock
Walpole had obtained a short extension of his leave , and employed the time in endeavouring to make up his mind about a certain letter to Nina Kostalergi , which he had written nearly fifty times in different versions and destroyed . Neither his lordship nor his niece ever saw him . They knew he had a room or two somewhere , a servant was occasionally encountered on the way to him with a breakfast-tray and an urn ; his letters were seen on the hall-table ; but , except these , he gave no signs of life -- never appeared at luncheon or at dinner -- and as much dropped out of all memory or interest as though he had ceased to be . It was one evening , yet early -- scarcely eleven o'clock -- as Lord Danesbury 's little party of four Cabinet chiefs had just departed , that he sat at the drawing-room fire with Lady Maude , chatting over the events of the evening 's conversation , and discussing , as men will do at times , the characters of their guests . ` It has been nearly as tiresome as a Cabinet Council , Maude ! ' said he , with a sigh , ` and not unlike it in one thing -- it was almost always the men who knew least of any matter who discussed it most exhaustively . ' ` I conclude you know what you are going out to do , my lord , and do not care to hear the desultory notions of people who know nothing . '