five o'clock
And it does not make me unhappy -- I only wish you to know that I want to be what you would have me -- and if I ca n't be all that you might wish , I love and adore you none the less -- am none the less willing to give you all there is to me -- all there is to a girl named Valerie West who finds this life a happy one because you have made it so for her . '' She continued to see Hélène d'Enver , poured tea sometimes at the Five-Minute-Club , listened to the consultations over the New Idea Home , and met a great many people of all kinds , fashionable women with a passion for the bizarre and unconventional , women of gentle breeding and no social pretence , who worked to support themselves ; idle women , ambitious women , restless women ; but the majority formed part of the floating circles domiciled in apartments and at the great hotels -- people who wintered in New York and were a part of its social and civic life to that extent , but whose duties and responsibilities for the metropolitan welfare were self-imposed , and neither hereditary nor constant . As all circles in New York have , at certain irregular periods , accidental points of temporary contact , Valerie now and then met people whom she was scarcely ever likely to see again . And it was at a New Idea Home conference , scheduled for five o'clock in the red parlour of the ladies ' waiting room in the great Hotel Imperator , that Valerie , arriving early as delegated substitute for Mrs. Hind-Willet , found herself among a small group of beautifully gowned strangers -- the sort of women whom she had never before met in this way . They all knew each other ; others who arrived seemed to recognise with more or less intimacy everybody in the room excepting herself . She was sitting apart by the crimson-curtained windows , perfectly self-possessed and rather interested in watching the arrivals of women whose names , as she caught them , suggested social positions which were vaguely familiar to her , when an exceedingly pretty girl detached herself from the increasing group and came across to where Valerie was sitting alone . -LSB- Illustration : '' ` May I sit here with you until she arrives ?