A“very English hotel on the Italian Riviera” has opened after some three years of work, and is finally ready to welcome Jazz Age English-speaking guests
such as the haughty Julia Drummond-Ward and her daughter Rose. The hotel is run by Bella Ainsworth with the help of her daughter Alice Mays-Smith.
Bella’s husband Cecil is nominally involved, but is often off on some scheme—as he is when his and Bella’s son Lucian meets Rose,
a possible match that is the purpose of the Drummond-Wards’ trip to Italy.
Lucian and Rose have already missed their chance at a meet-cute:
when he arrived to pick the Drummond-Wards up from the train station, Julia immediately treated him as a common laborer and he obliged.
when he arrived to pick the Drummond-Wards up from the train station, Julia immediately treated him as a common laborer and he obliged.
when he arrived to pick the Drummond-Wards up from the train station, Julia immediately treated him as a common laborer and he obliged.
It was only at the hotel that Julia and Rose realized their mistake.
The Drummond-Wards join such other guest
as the funereal Lady Latchmere and her niece Melissa De Vere; the Oxford-educated Italian Count Albani and his son Roberto;