Margaret and Helen are idealistic, independent and highly educated. The Wilcoxes are uncultured and utterly conventional. Leonard Bast is poor and underprivileged, but with intellectual aspirations. Unexpectedly, when Mrs. Wilcox dies, Mr. Wilcox proposes to and is accepted by Margaret schlegel. Her sister Helen is shattered by this marriage, and in reaction to it turns to Leonard Bast. The story has become a tangle of opposites, and through the agency of Mr. Wilcox's son Charles, it turns to tragedy. But in the end, thanks to the moral strength of Margaret, who believes that opposites can meet, that different kinds of people can connect, there is a resolution that is almost a triumph.