Every summer Maud Gonthier, from Dijon, the only daughter of a widowed mother, is invited to La Gaillarderie, her aunt's large country house. This particular summer Maud is eighteen, a handsome young woman, but cautious, rigid, a girl who does not know how to flirt. At La Gaillarderie she will meet two Englishmen, David Tyler - assured, beautiful and ruthless - and Tyler's friend from Cambridge, Edward Harrison, a quiet dreamer. Maud, as is inevitable, is seduced by Tyler. They move, all three, to Paris, to an apartment on the Rue Laugier. Tyler, as is also inevitable, deserts Maud, leaving her pregnant. What is not inevitable is that Edward offers to marry her and that she agrees...