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Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937

"The Greater Inclination"

She will be at Newburgh to-night
at ten, and she has calculated that the others can't possibly arrive
before midnight.
_Warland_. You have a delightful way of putting things. I suppose you'd
talk of me like that.
_Isabel_. Oh, no. It's too humiliating to doubt one's husband's
disinterestedness.
_Warland_. I wish I had a rich aunt who had fits.
_Isabel_. If I were wishing I should choose heart-disease.
_Warland_. There's no doing anything without money or influence.
_Isabel (picking up her book)_. Have you heard from Washington?
_Warland_. Yes. That's what I was going to speak of when I asked for Mrs.
Raynor. I wanted to bid her good-bye.
_Isabel_. You're going?
_Warland_. By the five train. Fagott has just wired me that the Ambassador
will be in Washington on Monday. He hasn't named his secretaries yet, but
there isn't much hope for me. He has a nephew--
_Isabel_. They always have. Like the Popes.
_Warland_. Well, I'm going all the same. You'll explain to Mrs. Raynor if
she gets back before I do? Are there to be people at dinner? I don't
suppose it matters. You can always pick up an extra man on a Saturday.
_Isabel_. By the way, that reminds me that Marian left me a list of the
people who are arriving this afternoon. My novel is so absorbing that I
forgot to look at it. Where can it be? Ah, here--Let me see: the Jack
Merringtons, Adelaide Clinton, Ned Lender--all from New York, by seven
P.


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