The Judgment of Eve by May Sinclair

It was Easter, three weeks after Susie's visit; and Arthur was going away for a fortnight, his first real holiday in seven years. For some time he had been lengthening out his office hours, and increasing his salary, by adding night to day. And now he had worn himself out by his own ferocious industry. He knew, and Aggie knew, that he was in for a bad illness if he didn't get away, and at once. He had written in his extremity to a bachelor brother, known in the little house at Camden Town as the Mammon of Unrighteousness. The brother had a big house down in Kent; and into that house, though it was the house of Mammon, Arthur proposed that he should be received for a week or two. He took care to mention, casually, and by way of a jest after the brother's own heart, that for those weeks he, Arthur, would be a lonely widower.

The brother was in the habit of remembering Arthur's existence once a year at Christmas. He would have had him down often enough, he said, if the poor beggar could have come alone. But he barred Aggie and the children. Aggie, poor dear, was a bore; and the children, six, by Jove (or was it seven? ), were just seven (or was it six? ) blanked nuisances. Though uncertain about the number of the children, he always sent seven or eight presents at Christmas to be on the safe side. So when Arthur announced that he was a widower, the brother, in his bachelor home, gave a great roar of genial laughter. He saw an opportunity of paying off all his debts to Arthur in a comparatively easy fashion all at once.