The first part of Rohmer's 'Four Seasons' quartet of films. The well-ordered life of Jeanne, a high school philosophy teacher, suddenly spins into disorder when a young stranger she meets at a party involves her in a devilish scheme. Natacha, an adolescent pianist with a penchant for subtly playing her elders, invites Jeanne to her father's home...hoping to make a match of the two and send her father's current lover, Eve, packing. But, when the tempestuous Eve arrives at every "chance" meeting between Jeanne and Natacha's father, fireworks of an entirely different sort erupt, and everyone is forced to examine his or her own philosophies on love, relationships and affairs of the heart.