The soul of kindness was what Flora believed herself to be, and made almost everyone else believe. Tall, blond, and as beautiful as a Botticelli girl, she appeared to have everything under control -- her household, her baby, her husband Richard; her all-too-loyal friend Meg; Meg's brother Kit, who has always adored Flora; and Patrick, the novelist and domestic pet. Only the painter, Liz, refuses to become a worshipper at the shrine. In this novel, Elizabeth Taylor gives us a study of deception, all the more telling for the deceptively gentle way in which it unfolds. The varied characters are delicately drawn; the irony is light as a feather; but only the Floras of this world will close the book without understanding more clearly the disease of self-love.