H. G. Wells. Meanwhile (or The Picture of a Lady) (1927, now Stratus, ISBN 0755104129, was another book report that year, and is a very curious, rambling book from a well known sci-fi and social commentator storyteller. This is a "stream of consciousness" story of what happens when the author gets a glance of an attractive lady, who may be an earlier girl friend, and starts to reminisce about world affairs, about England's place in the world. There was a particularly bookish discussion of "Stoics and Epicureans," the former driven to extremes by the consequential logic of their own philosophy.
The book has a two-part structure ("Op. 111"). A suspected affair by the wife in the hosting couple in the furst part leads to a secondary spinoff about world affairs, Britain's place, and the meaning of Italian fascism (which is not what people think). In a way the book reminds one of the New Wave film "In Praise of Love" (2001).
I read this for a book report as a senior in high school and it is hard to see how I would have understood it. The book had always been in my parents' den bookcase in my childhood.