four o'clock
To one looking up from the lower hall , they had the appearance of quaint jardinière . There was not too much color . December , in the Puget Sound country , means the climax of the wet season when under the interminable curtain of the rain , dawn seems to touch hands with twilight . It was hardly four o'clock that Christmas eve when the _ Aquila _ arrived with the guests from Seattle , but the villa lights were on . A huge and resinous backlog , sending broad tongues of flame into the cavernous throat of the fireplace , gave to the illumination a ruddier , flickering glow . To Foster , who was the first to reach the veranda , Foster who had been so long accustomed to faring at Alaska road-houses , to making his own camp , on occasion , with a single helper in the frosty solitudes , that view through the French window must have seemed like a scene from the Arabian Nights . Involuntarily he stopped , and suddenly the luxurious interior became a setting for one living figure .