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As time passed, Paul fell so completely under the spell of the charm of the world of affairs that he seriously began to consider the advisability of following the general custom of taking on a mistress.

I mustn't be too marked, he averred to George Everest from the rich brown leather of a couch at the Moloch Club. Everybody else down here is keeping somebody and I seem to be out of it. John Armstrong warns me against stenographers. What do you say?

Well, old man, George roared back at him, what do you say?

Paul grinned. For the moment he was not prepared to say anything more. The idea, although it had been revolving vaguely in his head, had just assumed formal expression. The next day, however, he did not lunch at the club as usual, and a little later in the afternoon, Florizel Hammond reported that he had squinted at Paul in the company of a cutie at Fraunces' Tavern. Thereafter, Paul and his cutie became the subjects for a good deal of ribald gibing around Wall Street. They had been observed dining at Voisin's and the Crillon; they had been seen motoring on the Boston Post Road