midnight
`` If you wait for Richard , you 'll wait a long time , '' his mother observed grimly . `` He called up a while ago , and said he had been invited to an impromptu studio party that he could n't get away from , and that he would be home in two or three hours . But I know Richard . If he gets interested in anything like that he wo n't be home until midnight . '' I do not pretend either to analyze or excuse the feeling of reckless defiance that seized me upon hearing of Dicky 's absence . I reflected bitterly that I had taken all the burden of seeing to the new home , and was suffering from illness contracted because of that work , while Dicky was frolicking at a studio party , with never a thought of me . I know without being told that Grace Draper was a member of the frolic .