chunk: Alice Vavasor, a young woman of twenty-four, is engaged to the wealthy and respectable and dependable, if unambitious and bland, John Grey. She had previously been engaged to her cousin George, but she broke it off after he went through a wild period. John, trusting in his love, makes only the slightest protest of Aliceâs planned tour of Switzerland with her cousin Kate, George's sister, even when he learns George is to go with them as male protector. Influenced by the romance of Switzerland, Kate's contriving to restore George to Alice's favour, and her own misgivings with John's shortcomings, Alice jilts her second fiancĂŠ.