The narrative opens in the brilliant, feverish summer of nineteen-fourteen, where high society dances on the edge of a precipice. Francis Sherbrand, a young Guardsman, marries Margot Mountjohn, a creature of the London and Paris club circuits whose terror of maternity mirrors the shallow materialism of her set. Their honeymoon in Paris is disrupted by the harsh intervention of nature, forcing Franky to confront his wife's deep-seated fears and the ambitions of his own family. Alongside their personal dramas, the shadow of international conflict looms large.
At a Paris restaurant, a dinner party hosted by Sir Thomas Brayham becomes the stage for a chilling display of German military arrogance when Count von Herrnung, an arrogant Prussian officer and proponent of Nietzschean superman philosophy, openly toasts the coming war of extermination. The narrative weaves between the frivolous pursuits of the aristocracy and the grim, quiet preparations of military aviators testing new inventions like the Bird of War monoplane. As the news of the assassinations at Sarajevo shatters the summer air, the characters continue their dance, oblivious to the fact that the foundations of their world are crumbling. The novel builds a rich, multi-layered portrait of a society drinking its final toast, capturing both the personal awakenings of characters like Franky and Patrine Saxham, and the tragic inevitability of a continent marching blindly toward armageddon.
