ten o'clock before
They were clinging to her skirts all the way down the hill . They were all going to Nice the next day ; and that evening the de Vignolles had gone down to the Casino and Vera had n't gone . It would have been all right if the children had not been allowed to sit up to see the conjuror conjuring in the lounge . But they had sat up ; and that had brought it to ten o'clock before he had Vera for a minute to himself . He may have chosen his moment badly -LRB- it was n't easy to choose it well , living , as the de Vignolles did , in public -RRB- , and perhaps , if they had n't had that little difference of opinion , he and she -- It was in the evening that they had had it , between the conjuring tricks and the children 's chatter , in the public , the intolerably public lounge , and it was only a difference of opinion , opinion concerning the beauty of the beautiful and hypothetical lady who was looking at him then , who had never ceased to look at him and Vera and the children when any of them were about . Thesiger could n't get Vera to say that the lady was beautiful , and the little that she did say implied that you could n't be beautiful if you looked like that . She was not beautiful -LRB- Thesiger had admitted it -RRB- in Vera 's way , and on the whole he was glad to think that Vera did n't look like that ; but there was , he had contended , a beauty absolute and above opinion , and the lady had it .