three in the morning
Loud double knocks begin to sound . Dinner guests are soon announced . Linda and Michael receive them heartily . Rossiter -- as many a public man does and has to do -- shoves his vain regrets , remorse , anxiety , weary longing for the unattainable -- somewhere to the back of his brain , where these feelings will not revive till he lies awake at three in the morning ; and prepares to entertain half-a-dozen hearty men and buxom women who are easily impressed by a little spoon-fed science . Linda is soon distracted from the scrap of paper in her bosom and gives all her attention to her cousins and grown-up school friends from Bradford and Northallerton who are delighted to see the New Year in amid the gaieties of London . But before she rings for her maid and undresses that night , she locks the burnt fragment in a secret drawer of her desk . The Ministry which was returned to power in December , 1910 , had to plan during the first half of 1911 to keep the Suffragists becalmed with promises and prevent their making any public protest which might mar the Coronation festivities .