When John Lion Deveron meets April McCreagh, a young, beautiful secretary at his newspaper office, a strange fantasy should have warned him that his staid, comfortable (but childless) marriage is endangered. A pleasant summer of luncheons together evolves into only a pattern of family visits, clouded by the disapproval of Lion's wife, Cynthia.

But April's determination, if unconscious, is not to be deterred by his marriage--or her own subsequent one. The social and distance barriers to their union seem insurmountable. However, whether or not, as friend Brightwood suggests, some Destiny is involved, their mutual attraction is inexorable--and Mother wants a grandson.

Dissolving the barriers to their consummation involves Lion's conversion, by virtue of April's poetic fancy, from a rather conservative newsman into a springtime forest god. The conversion successful-at heavy cost-Lion finds that, alas, to trust a woman is to write one's memoirs in the snow. When their tug of war concludes, he is confronted with the ultimate question: has he won or lost?