Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE PEACE BASIS THERE were four in their party but it was only with Alfred Baldwin that Mary Wollaston danced. The other man—Black his name was, and he came from Iowa City or Dubuque or thereabouts—devoted all his attention to Baldwin's wife. He was very rich, very much married— out in Iowa—and whenever he made his annual business trip to New York, he liked to have a real New York time. They had dined together at the Baldwins' apartment with a vague idea of going afterward to see a play of Baldwin's then drawing toward the close of a successful season's run. But dinner had been late and they had lingered too long over it to make this excursion worth while. It had amused both Mary and Christabel to discover Black's secret hope of being taken back-stage and introduced to the beautiful young star who was playing in the piece and taking her out to supper with them. He didn't know that Baldwin hated her with a perfect hatred and never got within speaking distance of her if he could help it. So, by way of making up to the western visitor for his disappointment they taxied up-town about ten o'clock to the brightest, loudest and most fantastically expensive of New York's dancing restaurants. Once there, he took command of the party; confidently addressed the head waiter by his first name and began "opening wine" with a lavish hand. He was flirting in what he conceived to be quite a desperate and depraved manner with Christabel, and what enhanced his pleasure in this entertainment was that he did it all right under the nose of the husband, who obviously didn't mind a bit. He would talk eloquently when he got home, withcarefully selected corroborative details, about the wickedness of New York. Mary liked the Baldwins. Christabel was on the executive committee of thei...