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In the late 1950s Stanford Powers, a procurement official for many of the United States' international aid efforts, is based in the UNICEF offices in Paris. Now in his sixties, he enjoys the cultured life of the French capital, fraternizing with people of all nations who collect in that melting pot.

Recommended to him by his English son-in-law, Prytania Scott Obée is a young mixed-race woman from New Orleans who arrives hoping for a job. Stanford is fascinated by her - she seems quite unaccountably mesmerizing, beyond her undoubted beauty. Quickly it is obvious that not only Stanford is intrigued by Prytania. One of his friends, the endlessly subtle, contrary and sage-like Madame de Verbois, has a very young English nephew who is clearly smitten, and a hesitant relationship begins.

Stanford and his wife frequent the theatre scene, and are friends particularly with a group of mime artists. Jean-Claude Bastien, the protégé of the mercurial master-mime Yves Adam, is the up-and-coming powerhouse of the medium, and all but the hard to please Yves are entranced by his seeming transparency and phenomenal talent. Prytania also becomes captivated, and her interest is returned. Jean-Claude and his Spanish wife Elena have an open marriage, so another affair succeeds the first.

But soon Prytania's small turbulence begins to engender more noticeable effects. A troubled artist, who has secretly adored her, kills himself; her first beau finds it hard to take no for an answer, struggling to control his resigned anger; and Elena discloses that she is pregnant. Will Jean-Claude be able, or indeed feel the need, to choose between Prytania and Elena? And what of Stanford himself? Is he more entangled than his unperturbed worldliness would indicate? In the end, passions are inflamed, everyone must learn a lesson or two, and some are altered permanently.

In her highly subtle second novel, first published in 1965, Janet Burroway explores the privileged domain of the sophisticated and cosmopolitan individuals whose modes announced the coming era of freedom and openness. With complexity and finesse she portrays this cats' cradle of varying intents and egos with enormous skill, uniquely powered by an arrow-sharp, apposite sourness.