The Triflers

An inheritance has allowed Monte Covington to spend ten years arranging his life around sports, travel and entertainment. Now thirty-two, he finds that the familiar routine has begun to lose its appeal. Tennis at Nice leaves him dissatisfied, and the cafés of Paris offer little relief from his restlessness. Frederick Orin Bartlett opens this romance by tracing the small changes that make a wealthy bachelor question a life built around keeping himself amused.

A later conversation between Marjory and Beatrice brings the cost of affection into sharper focus. Beatrice describes Peter's illness and his love for Marjory, while Marjory reconsiders her belief that love can be chosen or rejected to suit personal freedom. Dialogue carries much of this emotional questioning, setting private feelings beside the pleasures of resorts and city life. Readers interested in romances about independence and responsibility will find characters struggling to understand what their feelings ask of them.