The story is set in a rural village where the painter William Hawkins is spending the summer at his parents’ farm, and his friend Hollanden, a writer, is staying at a fashionable hotel. Visiting the hotel, Hawkins gradually falls in love with Grace Fanhall, an heiress, suffers longing and jealousy, and eventually returns to New York City. In the city, we meet the other artists with whom he shares a life of Bohemian poverty and quaint unconventionality. (Goodreads)