The Razor's Edge

by W. Somerset Maugham

“Why didn’t you come and see us at once, you horror?” cried Isabel, with a pretense of indignation. “I’ve been hanging out of the window for the last five days to see you coming and every time the bell rang my heart leapt to my mouth and I had all I could do to swallow it again.” Larry chuckled. “Mr. M. told me I looked so tough that your man would never let me through the door. I flew over to London to get some clothes.” “You needn’t have done that,” I smiled. “You could have got a reach-me-down at the Printemps or the Belle Jardinière.” “I thought if I was going to do it at all, I’d better do the thing in style. I haven’t bought any European clothes for ten years. I went to your tailor and said I wanted a suit in three days. He said it would take a fortnight, so we compromised on four. I got back from London an hour ago.” He wore a blue serge that nicely fitted his slim figure, a white shirt with a soft collar, a blue silk tie, and brown shoes. He had had his hair cut short and shaved off the hair on his face. He looked not only neat, but well-groomed. It was a transformation. He was very thin; his cheekbones were more prominent, his temples hollower, and his eyes in the deep sockets larger than I remembered them; but notwithstanding he looked very well; he looked, indeed, with his deeply sunburnt, unlined face, amazingly young. He was a year younger than Gray, they were both in their early thirties, but whereas Gray looked ten years more than his age, Larry looked ten y...