The 1929 stock market crash has ruined Gray, and he and Isabel are invited to live in her uncle Elliott Templeton's grand Parisian house. Gray is often incapacitated with agonising migraines due to a general nervous collapse. Larry is able to help him using an Indian form of hypnotic suggestion. Sophie has also drifted to the French capital, where her friends find her reduced to alcohol, opium and promiscuity – empty and dangerous liaisons that seem to help her to bury her pain. Larry first sets out to save her and then decides to marry her, a plan that displeases Isabel, who is still in love with him.