Aware of her beauty, yes and triumphantly enthroned in its aura-but, belying that beauty with the vain, supercilious and selfish behavior of a young schoolgirl who knows little of life save that all its worries do not exist for her.

Such was Marcia Thomaston, who reclined indolently on the chaise lounge of her apartment, clad in a costly lace-festooned black silk negligee, her dainty feet sheathed in pretty Russian mules, fur-lined and delighting her with the sensuous feeling of luxury and comfort.

Her beauty naturally drew men to her as a flame draws moths; until her suitors, discovering her emptiness and affectation, evaded burning in that clear, chill flame wherein no true passion was kindled, no reciprocal response, or sincerity of emotion.

One suitor she had who had been most persistent of all-and this was strange, for he was a worldly and debonair man nearly thirty, sophisticated, polished in bearing, enormously wealthy-the sole heir to an oil fortune left him by an uneducated father who had “struck it rich.” Gregory Matthews, this questing swain, fascinated by the sensual beauty of Marcia, had courted her for a year, wined and dined her, ingratiated himself with her father and mother- who certainly approved of the possibility of such a liaison-and had proposed to her several times.

Marcia, unmoved by such obdurate attention, was, far from being flattered at Gregory’s offer- many another New York socialite in the crowd of beautiful girls and young women of which Marcia was a member would have been overwhelmed by his interest-plainly bored and she had told him so, laughing in his face on the occasion of his latest proposal, three weeks past, at the fashionable Rainbow Club near Park Avenue.

“Marry-and especially you? Why, that’s too ridiculous to think of, Greg. And what would you do with a wife like me?” she had mocked him.