This is the early novel of Rhys, later retitled Quartet. It is set among artists and exiles in Paris in the 1920s. A young Englishwoman, Marya, is left without support when her husband is imprisoned, and she accepts shelter from a married couple in the circle around them. What seems like generosity slowly turns into a tangle of dependence and control. The book introduces themes that run through her work: money, vulnerability and the uneasy position of a woman alone.