Victoria Van Allen was the name she signed to her letters and to her cheques, but Vicky Van, as her friends called her, was signed all over her captivating personality, from the top of her dainty, tossing head to the tips of her dainty, dancing feet.

Young lawyer Chester Calhoun liked her from the first, and if her “small and earlies” were said to be so called because they were timed by the small and early numerals on the clock dial, and if her “little” bridge games kept in active circulation a goodly share of our country’s legal tender, those things are not crimes.

Chester lived in one of the polite sections of New York City, up among the East Sixties, and at the insistence of his sister and aunt, who lived with him, their home was near enough to the great boulevard to be designated by that enviable phrase, “Just off Fifth Avenue.” They were on the north side of the street, and, nearer to the Avenue, on the south side, was the home of Vicky Van.