Richard Grannison in Raymond Postgate’s Somebody at the Door soliloquises about afternoons:

“Afternoons are the time for seduction. Anatole France proved it long ago …

“Consider the whole question in the light of reason … The conventional night out. What does it mean? Why, creeping home about five in the morning, very tired and uncomfortable, with none of the buses or trains running, and probably no taxi available. One is unshaven and probably has an unpleasant mouth. If you are a man who runs the usual ménage, you are terrified of making a noise as you come in and facing questions afterwards. You are exhausted and irritable the rest of the day; and what, I ask you, are your last recollections of the girl friend? You saw her in the light of early morning: she was probably half asleep, with her mouth open, and she might be snoring …

“And then think of the afternoon … You get up – you have a cocktail (I am going to order one in a minute). Your last intimate recollection of your friend is of her in complete command of herself, in what the eighteenth-century poets called a sweet disorder. As lovely as you look this moment, my dear. You part about four or five o’clock – bland, cheerful, unchallengeable. Nobody knows that you have been occupied otherwise than innocently. You remember each other as we, I hope, will remember each other. I hope you will think of me as clean and well-shaved, and as cheerful after a large dry Martini. That is what I am going to order, and I have remembered that you like a Clover Club. And I shall certainly remember you as beautiful as you are now, and as chic as you were when you came – and as you will be when you take my arm downstairs. I shall say ‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Grayling! It has been a pleasure meeting you,’ and that understatement will end a perfect afternoon.”