David and Frances are a middle-aged couple with problems - mostly David's. His bank is failing, as is his attention to the marriage. In the background there's a bank examiner named Clyde Ramsey with the moves of a bounty hunter ready to pounce.

Frances, who has decided that a change of air just might break the tension, talks David into a transatlantic crossing on a deluxe ocean liner. But it's a dangerous game she's put into play, dangling the bait (whose name is Melissa) squarely in front of her unfaithful husband. No sooner have she and David settled themselves in the first-class dining saloon than a stranger appears at their table. It's no coincidence.

Their dinner companion turns out to be a charming bounder named Burton Rutledge, the sort, David says, "who if he can convince us he's got plenty of money, then there's no way we'd suspect he might be after ours." Slowly, inexorably, like the first-growth clarets served at table, their offshore stories unfold to breathe with life and energy, enlivened every nautical mile by vintage Higgins dialogue.