About eleven o'clock
`` For one of your folks , is n't it , Mrs. -- er -- '' Gertie took it . It was written on excellent paper , and directed in a man 's handwriting to Mr. Gregory : `` Thank you , Mrs. -- er -- '' said Gertie . Then she went back into her room , put the letter carefully away in the drawer of the table and set about her household business . About eleven o'clock she stepped out for a little refreshment . She had , of course , a small private exchequer of her own , amounting usually to only a few pence , of which the Major knew nothing . This did not strike her as at all unfair ; she only wondered gently sometimes at masculine innocence in not recognizing that such an arrangement was perfectly certain . She got into conversation with some elder ladies , who also had stepped out for refreshment , and had occasion , at a certain point , to lay her wedding-ring on the bar-counter for exhibition .