eleven o'clock at night
Even when , after dinner that evening , Bertram put on his hat and coat and went out , Billy refused to meet her sister-in-law 's meaning gaze . But in the morning , after they had left the house , Billy did not attempt to deceive herself . Determinedly , then , she set herself to going over in her mind the past months since the baby came ; and she was appalled at what she found . Ever in her ears , too , was that feared name , `` Bob Seaver '' ; and ever before her eyes was that night years ago when , as an eighteen-year-old girl , she had followed Bertram and Bob Seaver into a glittering café at eleven o'clock at night , because Bertram had been drinking and was not himself . She remembered Bertram 's face when he had seen her , and what he had said when she begged him to come home . She remembered , too , what the family had said afterward . But she remembered , also , that years later Bertram had told her what that escapade of hers had really done for him , and that he believed he had actually loved her from that moment .