A junior professor finds his prospects ruined by a consuming love affair that blew through his life and changed his perspective entirely. Many years later, in the wake of his wrecked marriage and his return from war-torn Europe, he comes back to America to visit the girl that once inspired endless passion from him.  He finds that she has aged gracefully and is living the picture-perfect American life, but there are moments in conversation when her mask slips, and he can see in her the strange, sad girl that he once loved. Even as they converse, she asks ordinary questions; but there is a parallel conversation taking place in his mind where each word is a painful cross-examination of his actions. He interrogates himself, asking why he left for Paris, why he spent so long there, why he did not come back – but all his answers sound clichéd and humiliating to him. He realizes that he was pursuing the dream of the ‘Lost Generation,’ trying to find the kind of life that he never thought he could have; unfortunately, he only saw Paris as a city of filth covered in art. Rather than come home and admit failure, he decided to cling stubbornly to that failed dream. At this moment, he begins to feel tired of ‘her’ questioning – until he realises that all his lies never really convinced her. As a woman in love, she saw the truth about him: that he was not going to a new world, but really fleeing the one he had here. She knew the exact moment he fell out of love with her, and had gracefully let go rather than hold on to him. This epiphany humbles him greatly, and the conversation falters. It is snowing. He just wants to leave her and be alone; as a good hostess, she understands, and they part cordially.