Mammon and Co by E.F. Benson — Read

Mr. Alington had never felt more at peace with himself, or in more complete harmony with his environment (a crucial test of happiness), than when he drove off to Waterloo from the doors of the Beaconsfield Club, of which he had lately become a member, after reading the last quotation of Carmel. All his life he had been working towards the consummation which was now practically his. His desire was satisfied, he had enough. A few forms only still remained to be put through, and he would be finally quit of all markets. On Monday morning his broker would sell for him every share he held in Carmel. On Monday morning, too, would that shrewd operator, Mr. Richard Chavasse, follow, as if by telepathic sympathy, the workings of Mr. Alington's mind, arriving at the same just conclusions, and a close with the offer made him by the Varalet Company in Paris for all the patents he owned in the motor business _en bloc_ -- at a considerable sacrifice, it is true -- completed his financial career.

Keen, active, and full of the most flattering triumphs as had been his progress towards this acme of his fortunes, yet he had never thought of it as anything but a progress, a road leading to a goal. Never had he let the edge of his artistic sensibilities get blunt or rusty from want of use, and he found, now that his more material work was over, that he himself, the vital and essential man, who dwelt in the financier, looked forward, like an eager youth on the threshold of manhood, to the real and full life which he was about to enter.