"You think because I have a title and am presentable that I can go anywhere?" She smiled. "The society I might care for hasn't the slightest interest in me. There is in this city a kind of society recruited largely from the fashionable hotels and from among those who have no fixed social position in New York—people who are never very far outside or inside the edge of things—but who never penetrate any farther." She laughed. "This society camps permanently at the base of the Great Wall of China. But it never scales it."
"Watch the men on Fifth Avenue," she went on. "Some walk there as though they do not belong there; some walk as though they do belong there; some, as though they lived there. I move about as though I belonged where I am occasionally seen; but I'm tired of pretending that I live there."
She leaned back among the cushions, dropping one knee over the other and tossing away her cigarette. And her little suede shoe swung nervously to and fro.
"You're the first girl I've seen in New York who, I believe, really doesn't care what I am—and I don't care what she is. Shall we be friends? I'm lonely."
Valerie looked at her, diffidently:
"I haven't had very much experience in friendship—except with Rita
Tevis," she said.
"Will you let me take you to drive sometimes?"
"I'd love to, only you see I am in business."
"Of course I mean after hours."
"Thank you…. But I usually am expected—to tea—and dinner—"