W. Somerset Maugham 
Merry Go Round 

Looking out upon the backstreets, the suburbs and the high society haunts of Edwardian London, the delightfully witty and independent spinster Miss Ley surveys a tangled web of lives; she sympathetically observes the struggle under the pressures of convention, and the complex interplay between love and reason. Through Miss Ley »s eyes we witness the brief but happy marriage of a dying poet; a woman »s adulterous passion for a young rascal, and finally, an honourable man »s decision to take virtue to extremes.