A young girl grows up on the grounds of a psychiatric asylum, Mount Mohonk Hospital for the Insane, where her father is Chief of Psychiatry. At night, she hears all the patients screaming. When she was younger, she asked her dad each night if they were ok—if anyone was hurting them in any way—and he would always reassure her they were. Her father is set on her becoming a doctor, as he has no sons. She becomes obsessed with a book in his study: Sexual Normality and Abnormality: Twelve Case Studies. Her father begins a program called "Tea at the House," where promising, well-behaved patients are invited to have tea with the family. One of these, Warren Keyes, is a Harvard undergraduate who attempted suicide. Before she even meets Warren, the protagonist paints a picture in her head of him as very attractive. He's invited multiple times, and on a later time she sits outside on the porch. He sees her for the first time and talks to her. She says she has to go and tells him the spot she always goes to in the woods. Later, he meets her there with cookies in a napkin. He asks to touch her. She gives him permission, not knowing what he means, and then he sexually assaults her by fingering her and masturbating when she doesn't know what's happening or want him to. She recalls everything about sexual organs she's read about in the book and wonders what good that is if she can't take action. He keeps telling her he's not hurting her, which she agrees that he doesn't, but it's a horrifying and unwelcome experience for her. He tells her not to tell anyone, that there's nothing to tell. That night, she cries out her window, joining in the chorus of cries from the asylum. Over time, the incident fades until years later, Warren writes her father to say he graduated from college and was accepted into the Navy to fight in WWII, all thanks to his help. The narrator's attention lingers on the crimson seal on the page.