Excerpt from Captivating Mary Carstairs In a rear room of a quaint little house uptown, a great bronzed-faced man sat at a piano, a dead pipe be tween his teeth, and absently played the most difficult of Beethoven's sonatas. Though he played it divinely, the three men who sat smoking and talking in a nearby corner paid not the least attention to him. The player, it seemed, did not expect them to: he paid very little attention himself. Next to the selection of members, that is, no doubt, the most highly prized thing about the Curzon Club you are not expected to pay attention unless you want to. It is a sanctuary where no one can bore you, ex cept yourself. The members have been chosen with this in mind, and not chosen carelessly. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.