Chapter I
It was when Eugene was at the height of his success that a meeting took place between himself and a certain Mrs. Emily Dale.
Mrs. Dale was a strikingly beautiful and intelligent widow of thirty–eight, the daughter of a well–to–do and somewhat famous New York family of Dutch extraction—the widow of an eminent banker of considerable wealth who had been killed in an automobile accident near Paris some years before. She was the mother of four children, Suzanne, eighteen; Kinroy, fifteen; Adele, twelve, and Ninette, nine, but the size of her family had in no way affected the subtlety of her social personality and the delicacy of her charm and manner. She was tall, graceful, willowy, with a wealth of dark hair, which was used in the most subtle manner to enhance the beauty of her fac
