Jan was the ‘ordinary one’ in a specially talented and good-looking family; the duckling in a brood of cygnets. She was neither ravishingly pretty nor interestingly plain, she had no particular ambition, and among her family's brilliant and successful friends she was tongue-tied and shy. So everyone was very much astonished when Simon Webster, who was a famous and successful playwright and a most attractive man, asked Jan to marry him, and her mother and sisters, much as they loved her, couldn't help expressing doubts as to whether the marriage could be a success. Jan herself had her misgivings, and they grew into fears when the beautiful actress Venetia, who had been part of Simon's past, turned up with the evident intention of linking herself with the present — and the future.