five
o'clock
`` Just so ! '' Harleston laughed . `` And now for the Lady of Peacock Alley ! '' Peacock Alley was in full gorgeousness when Harleston , just at five o'clock , paused on the landing above the marble stairs inside the F Street entrance and surveyed the motley throng -- busy with looking and being looked at , with charming and being charmed , with wondering and being wondered at , with aping and being aped , with patronizing and being patronized , with flattering and being flattered , with fawning and being fawned upon , with deceiving and being deceived , with bluffing and being bluffed , with splurging , with pretending , with every trick and artifice and sham and chicanery that society and politics know , or can fancy . Harleston was familiar with it all for too many years even to accord it a glance of contemptuous indifference -- when he had anything else to occupy his mind ; and just now his mind was on a lady in black with three American Beauties on the gown . He went slowly down the steps to the main corridor and joined the buzzing , kaleidoscopic crowd . Somewhere on the floor above , an orchestra was playing for the _ dansant _ ; and the music came fitfully through the chatter and confusion .