s
together.

"Do you know why I came?" asked Helene d'Enver. "I was lonely."

"_You!_"

"My dear, I am a lonely woman; I'm lonely to desperation. I don't belong
in New York and I don't belong in France, and I don't like Pittsburgh.
I'm lonely! I've always been lonely ever since I left Pittsburgh. There
doesn't seem to be any definite place anywhere for me. And I haven't a
real woman friend in the world!"

"How in the world can you say that?" exclaimed Valerie, astonished.

The countess lighted another cigarette and wreathed her pretty face in
smoke.

"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--"

Helene lay back among the cushions, looking at her.

"Haven't you any time at all for me?" she asked, wistfully.

Valerie was thinking of Neville: "Not--very--much I am afraid--"

"Can't you spare me an hour now and then?"

"Y--yes; I'll try."

There was a silence. The mantel clock struck, and Valerie glanced up.
Helene d'Enver rose, stood still a moment, then stepped forward and took
both of Valerie's hands:

"Can't we be fr