The Age of Indiscretion

For years Basil Carslake has parried the self-assertive domination of his wife with good-humoured tolerance and has privately consoled himself with the affectionate attentions of Marie Brooke. At the same time their daughter Daphne has fallen in love with a divorcee, Lionel Perry, who is many years her senior; her mother, with her personal experience of an ill-made marriage, has set her face against the union but Basil is prepared to agree to any proposition by his adored daughter. He also sees that marital security for Daphne would give him the chance to slip his own bonds of matrimony and spend his declining years with Marie; suiting the action to the thought he announces his intention of leaving Ruth. But it is after this decision that his plans go astray, for the shock of her parents' coming seperation suddenly makes Daphne unsure of her love for Lionel, and after an impassioned appeal by John Beauclerc, a young actor who is more than fond of her, she realises that it was her mother who had her true interests at heart in discouraging her marriage with a man much older than herself. Far from loving him, she was only seeking an escape from the insecurity of her home life. As a result of this, Basil sees how irreperable the consequences of his indiscretion could be for his daughter and, firmly putting the past behind him, he and Ruth resolve to make a happier, more tolerant affair of their marriage for the sake of Daphne, who is discovering something of the romance of young love in the company of John.