About four o’clock
People came in to see Mr. Clacton on business , and a seductive smell of cigarette smoke issued from his room . Mrs. Seal wandered about with newspaper cuttings , which seemed to her either `` quite splendid '' or `` really too bad for words . '' She used to paste these into books , or send them to her friends , having first drawn a broad bar in blue pencil down the margin , a proceeding which signified equally and indistinguishably the depths of her reprobation or the heights of her approval . About four o'clock on that same afternoon Katharine Hilbery was walking up Kingsway . The question of tea presented itself . The street lamps were being lit already , and as she stood still for a moment beneath one of them , she tried to think of some neighboring drawing-room where there would be firelight and talk congenial to her mood . That mood , owing to the spinning traffic and the evening veil of unreality , was ill-adapted to her home surroundings .