four
o'clock
`` I feel like a boy with a holiday , '' he confessed . `` I 'm free -- free ! '' He kindled at her suggestion that they make it a holiday in truth , and repeating , `` I 'm free , '' gave himself to the spectacle of the street . Mrs. Hilliard suddenly remembered to be cosmopolitan , and bringing her lorgnon into action , returned stare for stare as their driver threaded his dexterous way through the clattering , glittering maze of four o'clock Fifth Avenue . With bewildering facility , she named the owners of the great houses -- usually striking amiss , though Shelby could not know -- and from some little experience with New York horse shows , could recognize an occasional carriage occupant . Her adaptability abashed him , setting her mysteriously apart from the woman whose past had been so intimately linked with his , and not until they tacked across the plaza into the wooded entrance of the park , which somehow suggested Tuscarora , did he pluck up the old sense of comradeship . There were still glittering equipages in plenty , and at every turn benches black with sightseers , for the day was a bit of summer gone astray ; but this and that bright-liveried copse or shining pond or meadow cropped by sheep evoked the familiar setting of their other rides without effacing the city towering beyond .