A novel of period and place, of mood and manners, tells its story in three the first and third, through Bernard Middleton, a young Englishman on tour, which sees the beginning and the end of Madame Solario's stay at Cadenabbia, on Lake Como; and the second through the unrelenting questioning of Madame Solario by her brother, Eugene Harden.It is 1906 and Cadenabbia's visitors are ending the summer, their many nationalities, titles, money, idle chatter making a new world for Bernard, while Count Kavonski's pursuit of Madame Solario gives him a chance to protect the woman who has infatuated him. The antagonism between the two is dissolved when Eugene appears, and envelops Madame in his plans for an opportunist alliance with wealth.