Featuring two protagonists, Marjorie Pope, the oldest daughter of a carriage manufacturer whose business has been ruined by the advent of the automobile, and R.A.G. Trafford, a physicist specializing in crystallography whom she marries against the wishes of her family at the age of 21. The novel traces the history of their relationship, which begins when an early airplane Trafford is piloting crashes into the garden of a house Marjorie's family is renting for the summer. . .