midnight
The very fleetness of its obedience prompted her to urge Tabs to take her farther and ever farther afield . There were evenings when they dined within sight of the sea beneath the red roofs of Rye and started back for London across the Sussex downs , driving straight into the eye of the sunset . There were afternoons when they drifted over the Chiltern hills to where the spires and domes of Oxford rise , placid as masts of a sunken ship in an encroaching sea of greenness . But it was most frequently nearing midnight when the quiet of the secluded Court was wakened by the merry buzzing of the engine . At first it would come from far away , drowsily like the song of a belated bee . Then it would gather in volume and grow more lively , till it panted round the little village-green and quavered into silence in front of Maisie 's door . Porter , with the gold light of the hall behind her , would always be there on the threshold to receive her mistress .