In Sight of St. Paul's — page 108: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE ASPASIA CLUB, 103 CHAPTER VII. THE ASPASIA CLUB. The Aspasia Club, situated upon the Thames Em- bankment, was scarcely a place where a man would care to take his wife or sister. Still, it was a very magnificent establishment indeed, conducted with a certain regard to the proprieties. The gambling was sometimes high, but the proprietor boasted, and prob- ably with a certain amount of truth, that everything was ‘‘on the dead square.’’ It was a place to which women were admitted, but none frequented it save those whom the younger Du- mas has so felicitously described as belonging to the half-world. They were speckled peaches, all of them, but in many cases, it required a keen eye to discover the little spot which cheapened them and pace them in the second-class basket. One of the most luxurious apartments in the club was the drawing-room, a little garish in its decora- tions, perhaps, but still very handsome. The walls ‘were painted with elaborate life-size figures, repre- senting the various gods and goddesses of mythologi- cal Olympus. In recesses were colored statues of As- af es Eomicbooks