When the door opened and Claudia came in, two open letters in her hand, the telephone began ringing. She shut the door and turned up the lights. Claudia Heseltine returns to this moment three times in a series of parallel narratives. As the novel presses the re-set button, she accepts each invitation, one by telephone, two by letter, to a specific social event, and in doing so her life goes down a different path with its own possibilities and achievements, sorrows and disappointments. First published in 1931.