Briefly, the origin of the Club was in this wise. Some four years previous to the date our story opens, a certain Major Fitzgerald, a man of unenviable notoriety in Society, whose name was almost as well known in the Divorce Court as it was in the clubs and boudoirs--a fact which, though it caused his exclusion from some circles, made him more welcome in others--chanced to meet the young and charming heiress, Helen Trevor, at the time of her _début_.
"That's the girl for my money," was the Major's inward comment. He had no money, by-the-bye, it was merely his _façon de parler_. So he lost no opportunity of cultivating Miss Trevor's acquaintance. Now the Major was a handsome, dashing man, with complete knowledge of the world, much _savoir faire_, the faculty for making himself dangerously agreeable, and no morals to speak of. Helen Trevor, too, though a girl of her time, was one of those strong characters that--thank goodness!--have not yet been eliminated from the human species, either by the artificial restrictions of Fashion on the one hand, or the undisciplined vagaries of Female Emancipationists on the other. She was too young and enthusiastic to have surrendered her habit of sympathy for the cheap cynicism that marked the culture of her day. Brimming over with sympathy, impatient for some sphere of active interest, and just sufficiently tinged with the spirit of martyrdom to be anxious to feel herself doing some work in the world, her sympathetic young heart, that had no suspicion of evil, went out to the Major when he murmured in a tone of manly contrition: "It is true, Miss Trevor, I have been wild and reckless, but it was all due to my having no one to guide me."
Helen's older acquaintances shook their heads in mysterious warning, and supplied just the needful hint of opposition to cause her to devote herself to what seemed to be a labour of moral heroism, helping him to the best of her ability. And Fitzgerald congratulated himself on his success in having brought about the very condition of mind he had laid himself out to produce. But he over-estimated his powers, and he made an irretrievably false step in trying to persuade Helen to elope with him to avoid her father's anticipated disapproval.