On a sunny afternoon waiting to meet a cousin she has never met. However, cousin Frances, with whom she was to stay, has failed to turn up. Eleanora, unaccustomed to the Mediterranean climate, is growing hotter by the moment. She is displeased, bored and rapidly losing her patience with ‘all things foreign’.
At the next table François, who recently arrived from Paris, is waiting too. He is nervous and afraid to sit down. The musical agent who was to audition him is an hour late. François is worried that he is at the wrong café. ‘C’est terrible’ because he needs the work. It is ‘tres chaud’ and he would like to remove his hat, but with a lady present, it would be bad etiquette.
Both Eleanora and François suspect they find themselves sharing a similar predicament. However, without a third person to make a formal introduction, they cannot converse.