Benedict Oakshaw is a gifted young American studying at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he distinguishes himself by the power and originality of his performances. During his days at the Academy he is captivated by a fellow student, an English girl named Jill who is brilliant, talented, and utterly defiant of convention. Their long, intense affair comes to an end when Ben meets Priscilla, an American girl who works at the American Embassy in London. They fall in love and marry. Returning to the States, Ben makes a futile attempt to gain a foothold on the American stage; abandoning the theater, he eventually becomes the enormously successful owner of a major ad agency in Washington, D. C.

Years later, Priscilla and Ben attend a play which Jill has written and in which she is performing at the Kennedy Center, and they go backstage to congratulate her. Priscilla, charmed by the playwright and completely unaware of her prior relationship with Ben, invites Jill and the British journalist who has become her constant companion to join Ben and herself on their annual summer vacation at their beach house on the Outer Banks.

What ensues is the summer trance of vacation. Ben comes to realize, which is haunted by the future as well as by the past. For the unborn are as implacable as the dead and the deserted, and on special stages love is not given in vain, and no gift is spurned with impunity, and desire does not fail.