The Cords of Vanity by James Branch Cabell

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And all the ensuing summer I followed Stella Musgrave from one watering place to another, with an engaging and entire candor as to my desires. I was upon the verge of my majority, when, under the terms of my father's will, I would come into possession of such fragments of his patrimony as he had omitted to squander. And afterward I intended to become excessively distinguished in this or that profession, not as yet irrevocably fixed upon, but for choice as a writer of immortal verse; and I was used to dwell at this time very feelingly, and very frequently, upon the wholesome restraint which matrimony imposes upon the possessor of an artistic temperament.

Stella promised to place my name upon her waiting list, and to take up the matter in due season; and she lamented, with a tiny and premeditated yawn, that as a servitor of system she was compelled to list her "little lovers and suitors in alphabetical order, Mr. Townsend. Besides, you would probably strangle me before the year was out."

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