We meet Nina Darling in India, on the veranda in the moonlight with a man who is not her husband. She is bringing their three month long flirtation to an end. This is Nina's pattern, you see. She is married, but she has always had and will always have her dalliances, even though she insists she is not a 'bad' woman. Flirtations, nothing more. She can't help it if the men always expect more than she is prepared to give. As soon as they start talking about taking her away from her husband she ends the relationship. She has a string of broken spirits to her credit.

Nina believes she could only ever be in love with one person, and he is not her husband. He is a man who disappeared after the Boer War. He was the only man she felt was a match for her. But she hadn't seen or heard from him in eight years. Would she ever again? And if she did, what would she do about her husband then?.