Edith Wharton

“ His manner in Paris had been so different!
Suddenly he turned and took off the glasses, which sprang back into a fold of his clothing like retracted feelers.
"Yes." He stood and looked at her without seeing her. "Very well. I have brought down a gentleman."
"A gentleman--?"
"The greatest American collector--he buys only the best. He will not be long in Paris, and it was his only chance of coming down."
Undine drew herself up. "I don't understand--I never said the tapestries were for sale." ”

“ Why on earth don't you cut it and come up to Paris?"
"Oh, Raymond's absorbed in the estates--and we haven't got the money. This place eats it all up."
"Well, that sounds aristocratic; but ain't it rather out of date? When the swells are hard-up nowadays they generally chip off an heirloom." He wheeled round again to the tapestries. "There are a good many Paris seasons hanging right here on this wall." ”

“ To have things had always seemed to her the first essential of existence, and as she listened to him the vision of the things he could have unrolled itself before her like the long triumph of an Asiatic conqueror.
"And what are you going to do next?" she asked, almost breathlessly, when he had ended.
"Oh, there's always a lot to do next. Business never goes to sleep." ”