Still, he was now, in his way, sincerely perplexed.
Chad had been absent from the Boulevard Malesherbes--was absent from Paris altogether; he had learned that from the concierge, but had nevertheless gone up, and gone up--there were no two ways about it--from an uncontrollable, a really, if one would, depraved curiosity.
The concierge had mentioned to him that a friend of the tenant of the troisieme was for the time in possession; and this had been Strether's pretext for a further enquiry, an experiment carried on, under Chad's roof, without his knowledge.

"I found his friend in fact there keeping the place warm, as he called it, for him; Chad himself being, as appears, in the south.

He went a month ago to Cannes and though his return begins to be looked for it can't be for some days.

I might, you see, perfectly have waited a week; might have beaten a retreat as soon as I got this essential knowledge.

But I beat no retreat; I did the opposite; I stayed, I dawdled, I trifled; above all I looked round.