Kingsblood Royal by Sinclair Lewis

He had read enough of pretenders to titles and lands to be certain that his father's claim was fool's gold. But the arrogant nonsense of it amused him, and he wanted a new hobby.

Since his leg would not let him ski, or go wallowing through the snowdrifts after rabbits, swimming at the Federal Club was his only sport. He had bored himself with bridge, with crossword puzzles, with an aimless reading of travel and biographies and the novels, the spiritual flowering of the war, in which Elizabethan tarts delighted several million respectable readers by doing things which would be considered undesirable in a young lady of Elizabeth, New Jersey.