I wish it were possible that your, own world could find me agreeable and desirable--for your sake, my darling, more than for mine.

But it never will--never could.

There is a wall around your world which I can never scale.

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 can'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 Helene 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.
[Illustration: "'May I sit here with you until she arrives?
I am Stephanie Swift.'"] "I was wondering whether you had met any of the new committee," she said pleasantly.
"I _had_ expected to meet the Countess d'Enver here," said Valerie, smiling.
The girl's expression altered slightly, but she nodded amiably; "May I sit here with you until she arrives?
I am Stephanie Swift." Valerie said: "It is very amiable of you.