Noon
She was in a shop now , it seemed , moving lithely among the velvets and the furs , her own dress making , as she walked , a debonair rustle in that world of silken rustles and cool soprano laughter and scents of many slain but living flowers . The Minnies and Pearls and jewels and jennies would gather round her like courtiers , bearing wispy frailties of Georgette crepe , delicate chiffon to echo her cheeks in faint pastel , milky lace to rest in pale disarray against her neck -- damask was used but to cover priests and divans in these days , and cloth of Samarand was remembered only by the romantic poets . She would go elsewhere after a while , tilting her head a hundred ways under a hundred bonnets , seeking in vain for mock cherries to match her lips or plumes that were graceful as her own supple body . Noon would come -- she would hurry along Fifth Avenue , a Nordic Ganymede , her fur coat swinging fashionably with her steps , her cheeks redder by a stroke of the wind 's brush , her breath a delightful mist upon the bracing air -- and the doors of the Ritz would revolve , the crowd would divide , fifty masculine eyes would start , stare , as she gave back forgotten dreams to the husbands of many obese and comic women . One o'clock . With her fork she would tantalize the heart of an adoring artichoke , while her escort served himself up in the thick , dripping sentences of an enraptured man . Four o'clock : her little feet moving to melody , her face distinct in the crowd , her partner happy as a petted puppy and mad as the immemorial hatter ... .