Isabel Otis, a young American heiress of a modest fortune has been enjoying a tour of Europe and at last decides to pay a visit to her English relative, Lady Victoria Gwynne. Politics; dinners at castles; handsome dukes; an engagement; murder; suicide - Isabel had not realized life in England could be so exciting! Eventually, this independent young woman must return to her anything but mundane life but romance follows her; but we see the old social and political world of San Francisco collapse in the devastating 1906 earthquake, with the promise of something newer and better under the guidance of such men as Philip Hofer, Mayor Phelan and Elton Gwynne.