three o'clock
But Nino rode many miles , as he thought , without meeting the count , dangling his feet out of the stirrups , and humming snatches of song to himself to pass the time . He looked at his watch , -- a beautiful gold one , given him by a very great personage in Paris , -- and it was half-past two o'clock . Then , to avoid tiring his mule , he got off and sat by a tree , at a place where he could see far along the road . But three o'clock came , and a quarter past , and he began to fear that the count had gone all the way to Trevi . Indeed , Trevi could not be very far off , he thought . So he mounted again , and paced down the valley . He says that in all that time he never thought once of what he should say to the count when he met him , having determined in his mind once and for all what was to be asked ; to which the only answer must be `` yes '' or `` no . ''