"[3] Mrs. Rylands accepts Sempack's notion that her husband's real problem is not infidelity but idleness, and the first book ends with him departing at her urging for a visit to England, where his family's vast coal holdings are at risk in the crisis that culminated in the 1926 general strike.

The novel's second "book" is dominated by Philip Rylands's letters describing the British political situation ("many of the leading participants in the strike appear in the novel without disguise"[4]) and his recruitment to the Open Conspiracy, Wells's plan for establishing a World Republic.

Lady Catherine undertakes the seduction of an unwilling Mr. Sempack, but before this affair can be consummated, she flees to join a British fascist committed to fighting the class war back at home.

Writing in the 1980s, David C. Smith considered the novel "badly neglected" and praised "excellent descriptions of the rich on the Riviera just before the deluge, as well as a poignant and sharp analysis of the fascist system under stress" and "a strong statement of the Open Conspiracy.

"[8] But Wells's most recent biographer, Michael Sherborne, judged it "not a successful novel" whose "dull characters ... share predictable views about the state of the world and engage in token romantic entanglements.