nine o'clock in the evening
Vincent Hardy would have been unaffectedly surprised if you had told him so . To himself he seemed the very incarnation of distinguished paradox . This simply meant that he was one of those who innocently imagine that they can defy the minor conventions with a rarer grace than other men . Certainly his was not exactly the sort of figure that convention expects to find in its drawing-rooms at nine o'clock in the evening . It was in Audrey 's house in Chelsea , the little brown house with discreet white storm-shutters , that stands back from the Embankment , screened by the narrow strip of railed plantation known as Chelsea Gardens . Here or hereabouts Hardy was to be met with at any hour of the day ; and late one July evening he had settled himself , as usual , near a certain `` cosy corner '' in the big drawing-room . His face , and especially his nose , was bronzed with recent exercise in sun and wind , his hair was limp with the steam of his own speed , and on his forehead his hat had left its mark in a deep red cincture .