Velvet Ear-Pads by Edith Wharton

Not until he found himself seated in the train, and on the point of / starting for Cannes, did the full horror of his situation break on the / Professor. Then, for an hour, he contemplated it in all its intricate / enormity, saw himself as a man dishonoured, ruined (for he now / remembered the full amount of the sum he had to account for), and, worse / still, severed from his best-loved work for a period incalculably long. / For after he had struggled through the preliminary difficulties he would / have to settle down to the slow task of reimbursement, and he knew that, / to earn enough money to repay what he had lost, he must abandon serious / scientific work such as he was now engaged in, and probably / stoop-abominable thought! -to writing popular "science" articles in one / of the illustrated magazines. Such a job had once been offered him on / very handsome terms, and contemptuously rejected; and the best he could / now hope was that there was still an opening for him somewhere between / the Etiquette Column and the notes on Rachel powder and bathing tights.

Arrived at Cannes, he found his way to what appeared to be the / fashionable shopping-street, and exteriorising his attention by an / extreme effort of the will he began to go the rounds of the dressmaking / establishments.