The product of an unhappy marriage and finally a broken home, Pamela Norris spends first her adolescence and then her young womanhood as the friend, companion and confidante of her writer-father, Andrew, who must resign his college professorship after his wife divorces him. The Norrises spend several years travelling together, so comfortable with each other that they rarely seek other company. As a result, Pamela reaches adulthood intellectually advanced but emotionally immature, with little experience of interacting with people her own age. When her father dies suddenly, the solitary Pamela is offered a job in the New York publishing firm that handled his books, and from financial necessity shares an apartment with a co-worker, Rachel James. Pamela is at first bewildered by Rachel's casual approach to life, but becomes accustomed to her friends running in and out of their apartment at all hours. One day, Pamela is home alone when Tony Powell, an aspiring artist, drops in. Almost before she knows it, Pamela is swept into the first serious love affair of her life; one that ends disastrously, with Pamela forced to confront not only her pregnancy, but the realisation that Tony is not the man she thought...

While its general story-line is familiar enough, Faith Baldwin's 1931 novel about a girl "in trouble" manages to separate itself from the pack through its non-judgemental handling of its material. To the reader, seeing Tony Powell through clearer eyes than the dazzled Pamela, the end of the affair is inevitable from the outset; and when, in rapid succession, Tony reacts with anger at the thought of his ruined life, an offer to pay for an abortion, an accusation that the pregnancy is a lie to trap him into marriage, the suggestion that another man's child is being foisted on him, and finally by leaving the country, it is hard not to cheer Pamela's determination to have nothing more to do with him regardless of what society might dictate. Pamela is fortunate in her sympathetic doctor, who has seen only too many such cases, and who arranges both a home and medical care for her in Merton, a small town in Pennsylvania, where his own nephew, Dr John Lathrop, runs a hospital. However, Dr Edwards warns Pamela that Dr Lathrop is entirely conventional in his thinking, and that in order to secure this refuge, she must pose as a widow. Pamela finds the necessity for deceit humiliating, but has no choice but to agree.

Through Pamela's experience, Faith Baldwin presents both sides of the argument - and the fact that, writing in 1931, she thought that there were two sides makes her fairly daring. The prevailing social view is put into the mouth of Dr Lathrop, who is unflinching in his condemnation of transgressors; but the inclusion of a subplot about a pregnant teenager being forced into marriage with a violent man who has already beaten her makes Baldwin's own distaste for such blanket judgement clear enough. So, too, is her opinion of the fact that as a single mother, Pamela faces rejection by the medical profession, and can only obtain decent care by a lie. Nevertheless, Baldwin does not contend that Pamela's way is "the" right way, only that it is right for her.

But Pamela does not escape punishment for her flouting of convention, even if it does not come in the usual form. After the birth of her son, Pamela stays on in Merton, working as Dr Lathrop's secretary. The two become close, and when the doctor proposes marriage, Pamela is forced into a terrible decision, one rendered still more terrible when Tony Powell - who, while he did not want either the child or marriage, cannot tolerate Pamela's rejection of him - finally tracks her down. The resulting confrontation decides the fate of Pamela and her son - and also teaches Dr Lathrop that there is sometimes a gap between theory and practice...