three o'clock
`` At what o'clock are you going for the drive ? '' asked Madame Piriac in her improved , precise English . She looked equally at her self-styled uncle and at Audrey . `` I ordered the car for three o'clock , '' answered Mr. Gilman . `` It is not yet quite three . '' The table with its litter of ash-trays , empty cups , empty small glasses , and ravaged sweets , and the half-deserted restaurant , and the polite expectant weariness of the priests and acolytes , all showed that the hour was in fact not quite three -- an hour at which such interiors have invariably the aspect of roses overblown and about to tumble to pieces . And immediately upon the reference to the drive everybody at the table displayed a little constraint , avoiding the gaze of everybody else , thus demonstrating that the imminent drive was a delicate , without being a disagreeable , topic .