One day in the nineteen-twenties on the train from Paris to Geneva Edith Campbell meets Major Ambrose Westwood in the dining car, makes his acquaintance over a lunch of six courses, and allows him to kiss her on the lips.
Both are heading for Geneva to posts in the newly created League of Nations and this intimacy binds them together in a private and public journey.
In those grand, glorious days, nothing seems beyond the intelligence and administrative talents of the young diplomats of the League. The prevailing mood of exuberance carries over into the Geneva nights. Edith, beckoned on by Ambrose, ventures into darker recesses of the times.
