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Early in March Mrs.Collingwood Martin gave a reception for her. Mrs.Julian vanNess Collingwood ssss1 Martin flattered herself, with justification, that in her wide old house facing Washington Square she maintained the nearest approach to a salon that could be found this side of Paris.

Her high drawing-room brought together leading spirits of the professional, business and diplomatic worlds, and her gracefully tinted head was never troubled with fear that the wrong ones might meet. All those on her selected list were the right ones, each interested in what the other represented. Many a little coup between the artiste and the financier is consummated under the guise of drinking a cup of tea or punch. And more than one professional has amassed a neat little fortune by making wide-eyed queries of the Wall Street man about his end of the game.

On the afternoon in question the rooms on the lower floor were crowded with laughter, perfume, silks, jewels, furs and the hum of animated voices.

Bowls of early spring bloom, azaleas, jonquils, mammoth daisies, stood on tables and at either side of the arched doorway. A faint blue haze of cigarette smoke hung overhead. Twilight had sifted through sunlight before Parsinova appeared. She always came late.