 Karen is escaping the pressures of her recent engagement to Ray Forrestier, ambivalent about the wedding; Ray himself is on a business trip.Her time with Uncle Bill and Aunt Violet is rather uneventful and uninspiring until Uncle Bill, a nervous and socially inadequate man, tells Karen that Violet is to have surgery in the coming weeks, a procedure that could prove fatal.Back in England, Karen finds Naomi Fisher waiting for her; she has travelled to London to see to the affairs of her recently deceased aunt, and tells Karen of her engagement to Max Ebhart, whom Karen met years before while she was one of the girls staying at Mme Fisher's house.