Paul Teeling is a professor of English at a university in Indiana. Paul is known as the "Chevigny Man" in the department, because his speciality is the literature of Geoffrey Chevigny. Paul has arranged for Chevigny himself to visit the university. During a get-together, Paul and his colleagues discuss Chevigny's work and his disposition. Paul feels he knows Chevigny extremely well, given the vast research he has done on the writer, but he has never met the man in person. The morning that Chevigny arrives in town, Paul teaches his undergraduate class and then makes his way to the train station. Chevigny arrives and Paul finally meets the subject of his studies, only to discover that he has been mispronouncing Chevigny's name for the entirety of his career. As they drive towards Paul's house, where a group of intellectuals will gather for dinner before Chevigny's lecture, Chevigny is irritable and pessimistic. He complains about the weather and his journey. Paul's wife Marian greets Chevigny when they arrive home, and the two men sit in Paul's study for a drink before the rest of the dinner party arrives. Chevigny rails on a recent review of his work by an American writer. He does not realize that the writer in question is Paul himself. Paul is angry but silently grateful that Chevigny does not realize who he is. Chevigny decides to take a brief nap before dinner, so Paul shows him to the guest bedroom. Paul bemoans the situation for the next half-hour, unable to fathom what his colleagues will think of this utterly unlikeable man. When Paul comes to wake Chevigny for dinner, he finds that the writer is dead. Paul feels sick, until he realizes that this is an ideal outcome: he can write about Chevigny's death, and about how he knew the writer personally, without the man himself alive to contradict Paul's written image of him.