five minutes to eight o’clock
After promising to give the matter his attention , he paid his visit to Phyllis , and then went to his rooms to dress ; for when Stephen Linton had said : `` Of course you 'll dine with us to-night : I told Ella you would come . '' He had said , `` Thanks ; I shall be very pleased . '' `` Come early ; eight sharp , '' Mr. Linton had added . And thus it was that at five minutes to eight o'clock Herbert found himself face to face alone with the woman whom he had so grossly humiliated . Perhaps she was hard on him after all : she addressed him as Mr. Courtland . She felt that she , at any rate , had returned to the straight path of duty when she had done that . -LRB- It was Herbert Courtland who had talked to Phyllis of the modern philosopher -- a political philosopher or a philosophical politician -- who , writing against compromise , became the leading exponent of that science , and had hoped to solve the question of a Deity by using a small g in spelling God .