eleven o’clock
The present evening had a different stamp ; if the company was much more numerous , so , inevitably , were the ideas set in motion . It was on the other hand , however , now strongly marked that the talkers moved , in respect to such matters , round an inner , a protected circle . They knew at any rate what really concerned them to-night , and Strether had begun by keeping his companion close to it . Only a few of Chad 's guests had dined -- that is fifteen or twenty , a few compared with the large concourse offered to sight by eleven o'clock ; but number and mass , quantity and quality , light , fragrance , sound , the overflow of hospitality meeting the high tide of response , had all from the first pressed upon Strether 's consciousness , and he felt himself somehow part and parcel of the most festive scene , as the term was , in which he had ever in his life been engaged . He had perhaps seen , on Fourths of July and on dear old domestic Commencements , more people assembled , but he had never seen so many in proportion to the space , or had at all events never known so great a promiscuity to show so markedly as picked . Numerous as was the company , it had still been made so by selection , and what was above all rare for Strether was that , by no fault of his own , he was in the secret of the principle that had worked . He had n't enquired , he had averted his head , but Chad had put him a pair of questions that themselves smoothed the ground .