When graduate student Steve Burnet is living in France, he meets fellow Canadian Harry Lapwing. Because their wives are friends, the two men often find themselves in each other's company, despite having very little in common. Steve, in fact, finds Harry loud and obnoxious and eventually comes to secretly blame him for the difficulties that soon develop in his marriage. After some time in France, Steve and his wife Lily, and Harry and his wife Edie, all meet a novelist named Watt Chadwick. Chadwick invites them to a concert, and there they meet nineteen-year-old David Ogdoad, Chadwick's gardener and a piano student. Chadwick allows David to use his piano to practice, but he is careful not to treat him with too much favor, afraid that they may be perceived as a couple. During intermission, the group goes for drinks at a bar. While they all socialize, Steve notices David admiring Lily. When Chadwick corrects Lily's Canadian accent, David compliments it. Steve is not surprised to see that David takes a liking to his wife, considering she treats him as if he were a real musician and not a gardener. Some time later, Chadwick plans a recital for David and invites the two couples to attend. The recital turns out to be not at all enjoyable; it is unnecessarily long and the room where it is held is unbearably hot. When it ends, the audience claps both for David's stamina during the lengthy and complex performance and for the relief of its ending. Then, a group of guests go with Chadwick and David to a celebratory dinner. There, Steve sits near Edie, with Harry out of earshot at the other end of the table. Fergus Bray, a guest sitting near Edie, gets her attention and questions her and Harry's relationship. In the same conversation, Fergus asks Edie to leave Harry and come to live with him in Spain. Shocked, Edie laughs off Fergus's bold advances, but Steve notices that she does not explicitly turn them down. In fact, he gets the sense that she may even be considering his invitation. When Watt Chadwick calls for a toast, Edie and Fergus do not notice and continue their conversation. Fergus, still somewhat harsh and rather blunt, tells Edie to stop talking about herself. He calls her boring and says that she is better off staying quiet and maintaining her good looks. The rest of the table takes the comment as an insult, but Harry only laughs at Fergus and agrees. In that moment, Steve sees Edie silently decide to leave Harry and travel with Fergus to Spain. Then, when Edie eventually announces her decision to leave with a man other than her husband, Lily does the same. She travels to London without Steve and, not coincidentally, leaves on the same train as David.