five minutes to nine
For she was more than merely playwright . In her desperate , overwrought determination Maggie had assumed for herself the super-mortal role of dea ex machina . And in those moments of tense waiting Maggie , who so feverishly loathed all she had been , was not at all sure whether she was going to succeed in her part of goddess from the machine . At five minutes to nine there was a ring . She gave a little jump at the sound . That was Barney . Though generally when Barney came he used the latch-key which his assumed dear cousinship , and the argued possibility of their being out and thus causing him to wait around in discomfort , Miss Grierson 's sense of propriety had unbent far enough to permit him to possess .