Didactic fiction; Political fiction; Social problems -- Fiction
Mr. Crewe had graciously sanctioned the list, but took the liberty
of suggesting as an addition to it the name of Miss Victoria Flint,
explaining over the telephone to Mrs. Pomfret that he had scarcely seen
Victoria all summer, and that he wanted particularly to see her.
Mrs. Pomfret declared that she had only left out Victoria because her
presence might be awkward for both of them, but Mr. Crewe waved this
aside as a trivial and feminine objection; so Victoria was invited, and
another young man to balance the table.
Mrs. Pomfret, as may have been surmised, was a woman of taste, and her
villa at Leith, though small, had added considerably to her reputation
for this quality. Patterson Pomfret had been a gentleman with red cheeks
and an income, who incidentally had been satisfied with both. He had
never tried to add to the income, which was large enough to pay the dues
of the clubs the lists of which he thought worthy to include his name;
large enough to pay hotel bills in London and Paris and at the baths,
and to free the servants at country houses; large enough to clothe his
wife and himself, and to teach Alice the three essentials of music,
French, and deportment. If that man is notable who has mastered one
thing well, Patterson Pomfret was a notable man: he had mastered the
possibilities of his income, and never in any year had he gone beyond it
by so much as a sole d vin blanc or a pair of red silk stockings. When
he died, he left a worthy financial successor in his wife.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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