The narrative centers on Ethelbert Daksha and her family's cultivated ideals and precarious finances, portraying their resistance to a society obsessed with wealth. It contrasts their aesthetic, culturally mixed heritage and moral convictions with Reginald Grove's upbringing in a money-driven household and his resulting discontent. Through social encounters and domestic detail the story examines the clash between spiritual aspiration and material ambition, the shaping of character by inherited influences, and the tensions that arise when idealism confronts the practical pressures of modern social life.