She linked her arms around his neck, interested, earnest, sure of his sympathy and approval: 

“We want to build a school in the country—­two schools, one for girls who have misbehaved, one for youths who are similarly delinquent.  And, during recreation, we mean to let them meet in a natural manner—­play games together, dance, mingle out of doors in a wholesome and innocent way—­of course, under necessary and sympathetic supervision—­and learn a healthy consideration and respect for one another which the squalid, crowded, irresponsible conditions of their former street life in the slums and tenements made utterly impossible.”

He looked into the pretty, eager face with its honest, beautiful eyes and sensitive mouth—­and touched his lips to her hair.

“It sounds fine, sweetheart,” he said:  “and I won’t be lonely if you go to the Plaza and settle the affairs of this topsy-turvy world....  Do you love me?”

“Louis!  Can you ask?”

“I do ask.”

She smiled, faintly; then her young face grew serious, and a hint of passion darkened her eyes as her arms tightened around his neck and her lips met his.

“All I care for in the world, or out of it, is you, Louis.  If I find pleasure in anything it is because of you; if I take a little pride in having people like me, it is only for your sake—­for the sake of the pride you may feel in having others find me agreeable and desirable.  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.