eight o'clock
`` The young woman smiled . '' ` It was my idea , ' she said , ` to send for you . ' `` I held out my hand to her . '' ` You are as nice as ever , ' I said , and I felt a long , friendly pressure of my fingers , but I paid no attention to it ; so we sat down to dinner , and at eight o'clock Julien went out . `` As soon as he had gone , a kind of strange embarrassment immediately seemed to arise between his wife and me . We had never been alone together yet , and in spite of our daily increasing intimacy , this _ tête-à-tête _ placed us in a new position . At first I spoke vaguely of those indifferent matters with which one fills up an embarrassing silence , but she did not reply , and remained opposite to me with her head down in an undecided manner , as if she were thinking over some difficult subject , and as I was at a loss for commonplace ideas , I held my tongue .