Elly Vandenberg is a Belgian interior designer with a huge international reputation. When Frances Smith sees the pictures of her country house in a magazine, she falls instantly in love and decides to travel, uninvited, to visit it. When Frances arrives, Elly and her friends are gathering for the weekend, to celebrate the opening of the local classical music festival at which Elly plans to reunite her friend Andrée with Andrée’s former lover, Max, a famous orchestral conductor. Frances is captivated by their glamorous world, and when Max mistakes her for “Madame Françoise,” a wealthy Englishwoman with a fabled collection of rubies, she adopts the rôle in order to become part of it. But the impersonation spirals out of her control and triggers a chain of events that lead to disaster. From the focal point of all their schemes and desires, Elly’s house becomes the symbol of ruined hopes, broken hearts and shattered lives.