Elsie Palmer is a restless suburban girl with a sharp eye for the small cruelties and vanities of domestic life. Trapped in a shabby boarding house with her strict mother, sickly sister Geraldine, and the ever-watchful lodger Mr. Roberts, she longs for excitement, romance, and escape. When Roberts invites her to the cinema, Elsie slips out by way of an alibi, delighted by the secrecy and by the first stirrings of her power over men, even as she remains uncertain about sex, selfhood, and what being "good" really means. Delafield follows Elsie's awakening with dark wit and keen psychological detail, exposing the tensions beneath ordinary routines. Her fascination with her own looks, her flirtation with Roberts, and her growing preoccupation with Leslie Morrison all reveal a young woman testing the limits of obedience, desire, and ambition. As the action moves toward a sweltering seaside holiday in Torquay, with jealousy, suspicion, and shifting loyalties in the air, Elsie's private hopes of romance and reinvention come vividly into focus. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.