The Temperate Zone by Edith Wharton

Mrs. Paul, as French had foreseen she would be, was late at their second / appointment; later even than at the first. But what did French care? He / could have waited contentedly for a week in that blatant drawing-room, / with such hopes in his bosom and such a treasure already locked up in / his portmanteau. And when at last she came she was just as cordial, as / voluble and as unhelpful as ever.

The great difficulty, of course, was that she and her husband were / leaving Paris so soon, and that French, for his part, was under orders / to return at once to America. "The things I could tell you if we only / had the time! " she sighed regretfully. But this left French unmoved, for / he knew by now how little she really had to tell. Still, he had a good / many more questions to ask, a good many more dates and facts to get at, / than could be crowded into their confused hour over a laden tea-table, / with belated parcels perpetually arriving, the telephone ringing, and / the maid putting in her head to ask if the orange and silver brocade was / to go to Biarritz, or to be sent straight on with the furs and the / sports clothes to St. Moritz.