Madame de Treymes

An American widow in Paris wants to marry a compatriot, and her French husband's family will not release her — and the sister-in-law who explains why is doing something more complicated than refusing. Wharton lived in Paris and knew the faubourg from inside; this 1907 novella is her most compressed study of two societies misreading each other, and Madame de Treymes's motive is the best thing in it.