midnight
It was dragging him , at strange hours , up the staircases of the rich ; it was keeping him out of bed at the end of long hot days ; it was transforming beyond recognition the simple , subtle , conveniently uniform thing that had anciently passed with him for a life of his own . Why should it concern him that Chad was to be fortified in the pleasant practice of smoking on balconies , of supping on salads , of feeling his special conditions agreeably reaffirm themselves , of finding reassurance in comparisons and contrasts ? There was no answer to such a question but that he was still practically committed -- he had perhaps never yet so much known it . It made him feel old , and he would buy his railway-ticket -- feeling , no doubt , older -- the next day ; but he had meanwhile come up four flights , counting the entresol , at midnight and without a lift , for Chad 's life . The young man , hearing him by this time , and with Baptiste sent to rest , was already at the door ; so that Strether had before him in full visibility the cause in which he was labouring and even , with the troisième fairly gained , panting a little . Chad offered him , as always , a welcome in which the cordial and the formal -- so far as the formal was the respectful -- handsomely met ; and after he had expressed a hope that he would let him put him up for the night Strether was in full possession of the key , as it might have been called , to what had lately happened . If he had just thought of himself as old Chad was at sight of him thinking of him as older : he wanted to put him up for the night just because he was ancient and weary .