It is before dinner in Seacliff, San Francisco. At the Barbour family home, Mrs Kettleman, the housekeeper, is alone and busy in the kitchen. Upstairs in Paul's studio at the top of the house, Paul and Claudia are quietly talking, and down in the cheerful library, Henry, Fanny and Clifford are gathered, awaiting the call to dinner. Henry has been looking unseeingly at his newspaper, sometimes muttering under his breath and shifting uneasily in his chair. A quiet talk with his granddaughter Teddy this morning had an unexpected development, which he hasn't quite confessed - even to Fanny...