An emancipated approach for the enlightening of Stephen Drake, a psychiatrist, who faces an occupational hazard when his clinical, intellectual attitudes block his own emotional responses. He is made particularly aware of this, and of the ""narrow ledge"" where he finds himself alone, when he falls in love with Teresa, recently imported from Europe by his mother, who deliberately raises the barrier of an unknown past. Rationalizing his love for her, and with little faith in that love, Drake loses her, until he realizes that his theories have cost him reality and his feelings override his detached doubts... Rentals chiefly, and public libraries should be circumspect.