twelve o'clock
cried Louise . Her eyes were sparkling : she was in a state of ecstatic excitement ; she could see no obstacles to the carrying out of her plan . `` You do n't think I mean to _ stay _ there , do you ? I 'm just going at twelve o'clock , and at four he comes back from the matinée , and at five o'clock I 'm going to slip on my things and run downstairs , and have you waiting for me in the coupé , and off we go . Now do you see ? '' It took some time to bring Esther 's less venturesome spirit up to the point of assisting in this undertaking ; but she began , after a while , to feel the delights of vicarious enterprise , and in the end the two girls , their cheeks flushed , their eyes shining feverishly , their voices tremulous with childish eagerness , resolved themselves into a committee of ways and means ; for they were two well-guarded young women , and to engineer five hours of liberty was difficult to the verge of impossibility . However , there is a financial manoeuvre known as `` kiting checks , '' whereby A exchanges a check with B and B swaps with A again , playing an imaginary balance against Time and the Clearing House ; and by a similar scheme , which an acute student of social ethics has called `` kiting calls , '' the girls found that they could make Saturday afternoon their own , without one glance from the watchful eyes of Esther 's mother or Louise 's aunt -- Louise had only an aunt to reckon with .