The Limit

Valentia Wyburn has a dinner invitation to arrange and a husband whose steady questions complicate her plans. Her cousin Harry de Freyne is bringing together Daphne and Van Buren, an American millionaire eager to meet English artists and celebrities. Valentia hopes the meeting will offer Daphne a promising match, while Romer's literal replies expose the awkward reasoning behind her social schemes.

Ada Leverson's British novel builds its comedy from conversations, manners and the effort to make carefully managed encounters appear accidental. A later scene turns to Mrs. Foster reading her poems to Daphne, followed by a garden meeting between Daphne and Cyril. Picturesque surroundings and affectionate words sit alongside Daphne's uncertainty about her own happiness. Readers interested in social comedy will find close attention to the gap between how relationships look and how they feel, with money, taste and marriage repeatedly entering the talk.