noon
`` So do n't you go home ! '' Jim added while he alighted and while his friend , letting him profusely pay the cabman , sat on in a momentary muse . Strether wondered if that were the real word too . As the door of Mrs. Pocock 's salon was pushed open for him , the next day , well before noon , he was reached by a voice with a charming sound that made him just falter before crossing the threshold . Madame de Vionnet was already on the field , and this gave the drama a quicker pace than he felt it as yet -- though his suspense had increased -- in the power of any act of his own to do . He had spent the previous evening with all his old friends together yet he would still have described himself as quite in the dark in respect to a forecast of their influence on his situation . It was strange now , none the less , that in the light of this unexpected note of her presence he felt Madame de Vionnet a part of that situation as she had n't even yet been .