This novel captures something about the early days of WWI. An American surgeon on staff at Johns Hopkins University named Bradford Stewart finds himself in Germany at the beginning of the war and is caught up in the early days as the German mobilizes to invade Belgium on it way to fight France. In a German hotel, Stewart meets a young French woman spy who is trying to get some secret letters into Belgium. When she meets Steward, she pretends she is his wife, and he goes along with her because he is attracted to her and because he wants to help her.
