a quarter to six
I hesitated to ask him if he had looked into them . A collateral feeling of delicacy prevented me from breathing a word to Clara about the pipe . Our reconstructed household , with its unreconstructed member , now moved forward on the lines laid down . Punctually at a quarter to six P. M. my cousin appeared at the front door , hung his hat on the rack , and passed into the sitting-room , sometimes humming in the hall a bar or two of The Bonny Blue Flag that bears a Single Star , to the infinite distaste of Mrs. Wesley , who was usually at that moment giving the finishing touches to the dinner-table . After dinner , during which I was in a state of unrelaxed anxiety lest the colonel should get himself on too delicate ground , I took him into my small snuggery at the foot of the hall , where coffee was served to us , Mrs. Wesley being left to her own devices . For several days matters went as smoothly as I could have hoped . I found it so easy , when desirable , to switch the colonel on to one of my carefully contrived side tracks that I began to be proud of my skill and to enjoy the exercise of it .