ten o'clock
I ca n't speak to him . Not , that is , unless he speaks to me . '' He did speak to him that very night . It was after ten o'clock , and Straker , who ought to have been in the drawing-room playing bridge , or in the billiard-room playing billiards , or in the smoking-room talking to Brocklebank -- Straker , who ought to have known better , had sneaked into the library to have a look at a brief he 'd just got . He ought to have known better , for he knew , everybody knew , that after ten o'clock the library at Amberley was set apart as a refuge for any two persons who desired uninterrupted communion with each other . He himself , in the library at Amberley -- but that was more than two years ago , so far before Philippa 's time that he did not associate her with the library at Amberley . He only knew that Furnival had spent a good deal of time in it with Nora Viveash , and poor Nora was gone .