five o'clock in the afternoon
Jimmy Crocker would never have said a thing like that nor would have refused the offer of alcohol . He fell into pleasant conversation with him . His mind eased . At five o'clock in the afternoon some ten days after her return to America , Mrs. Pett was at home to her friends in the house on Riverside Drive . The proceedings were on a scale that amounted to a reception , for they were not only a sort of official notification to New York that one of its most prominent hostesses was once more in its midst , but were also designed to entertain and impress Mr. Hammond Chester , Ann 's father , who had been spending a couple of days in the metropolis preparatory to departing for South America on one of his frequent trips . He was very fond of Ann in his curious , detached way , though he never ceased in his private heart to consider it injudicious of her not to have been born a boy , and he always took in New York for a day or two on his way from one wild and lonely spot to another , if he could manage it . The large drawing-room overlooking the Hudson was filled almost to capacity with that strange mixture of humanity which Mrs. Pett chiefly affected .