Ellen Rogers, nineteen, pampered and playful, beautiful and bored, found tormenting boys more exciting than horse-back riding or piano lessons, She had already twisted Bill Northrup round her fingers and discarded him. Now she was looking for bigger game.
Ed ("Hellfire") Lanson, good-looking, powerful, self-educated, brutal, had an egotism which could crush Ellen's. His quotations from Swinburne and Nietzsche, his studied lovemaking, his calculated ruthlessness, reduced Ellen to a bewildered love-sick girl.
