Neil Bronson, new from the Royal Academy, summers in Provence, teaching himself to paint outside. Before returning home, he and his friends, Sam and Carrie, rent a cottage on the coast, playing a langorous triangle of seaside sexual attraction. Neil's uncle interrupts the idyll, urgently seeking their help teaching at his art school in Santa Fe. A month later, Bronson and Sam move into Casa Marriner and meet the faculty members, several jealous...