Of his more than 100 hundred short stories, this is Maugham's favorite. He once wrote that the reason was that in it he had created a sentence that pleased him enormously: "Here love had tarried for a moment like a migrant bird that happens on a ship in midocean and for a little while folds its tired wings." While this is an impressive passage and illustrates the fact that Maugham was a better stylist than he is often considered—being lyrical when appropriate and down-toearth when needful—there are more substantial reasons for admiring this tale.

Since Maugham was bilingual, speaking French before he learned English, his early reading was French authors, and Maupassant especially was influential, particularly as to the importance of economy and plot. According to his own definition of a short story, the work must focus on "a single situation." "Red" does this in...