ten o’clock
He recognised at last that he had really been trying all along to suppose nothing . Verily , verily , his labour had been lost . He found himself supposing innumerable and wonderful things . Strether could n't have said he had during the previous hours definitely expected it ; yet when , later on , that morning -- though no later indeed than for his coming forth at ten o'clock -- he saw the concierge produce , on his approach , a _ petit bleu _ delivered since his letters had been sent up , he recognised the appearance as the first symptom of a sequel . He then knew he had been thinking of some early sign from Chad as more likely , after all , than not ; and this would be precisely the early sign . He took it so for granted that he opened the _ petit bleu _ just where he had stopped , in the pleasant cool draught of the _ porte-cochère _ -- only curious to see where the young man would , at such a juncture , break out . His curiosity , however , was more than gratified ; the small missive , whose gummed edge he had detached without attention to the address , not being from the young man at all , but from the person whom the case gave him on the spot as still more worth while .