Other conflicts involve shooting rights, parent-child tensions, and, as always in Powell’s work, the dissatisfactions of romance and sex, this time including cross-dressing.

Though some interpret the novel as a reaffirmation of traditional English values, no character – whether for reason of class, place of residence, intelligence, or gender – escapes Powell’s increasingly subtle critical examination of human life.

"[a] Meanwhile, the neighboring Fosdick family – the Major, his sons Torquil and Jasper – carry on a seemingly perpetual feud with the Passengers that is as often characterized by displays of better manners and more proper etiquette as it is by bad temper and argument.

Joanna Brandon, a local young woman, further complicates the lives of several of the principals; she may be Powell’s most sensitively rendered female character.

The novel moves through ten chapters toward an inescapable denouement, though never tipping its hand as to precisely how the foreshadowing of the title shall be brought to fruition.