Up in Heaven

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Marcia Phillips, Nee Edmunds, lifted her champagne goblet and smiled at her husband of a day across from her at the festively set, white-linened table the headwaiter himself had set up for them in the living room of their bridal suite at the Waldorf-Astoria.

“To our marriage, darling,” she said in a soft, throaty voice that shook and spoke a quivering eager feminine curiosity and, above all, a candid sensuality.

Across from her, Max Phillips raised his glass to join in that toast, an appreciative smile curving his sensuous mouth.

“And-to ecstasy, my sweet,” he added, his smile deepening as a vivid flush stained the pale ivory of Marcia's satiny cheeks.

The marriage of Max Phillips and Marcia Edmunds had roused great social interest, both being drawn from New York's elite families. Max was black-haired, sleek, lean, and athletic of body- thirty-eight, in the very prime of life. Steel blue-gray eyes, aquiline nose, with perceptively thin nostrils, a full mouth that suggested his voluptuous temperament without equivocation, a strong chin and jaw and arching broad forehead, gave him the mien of a self-made individual, candid and ardent — which he indeed was. Inheriting the family fortune, he nonetheless had made one of his own through his importing firm, which had given him full opportunity to pursue his own pleasures by way of many trips to Europe on buying excursions.

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