New York serves as a meeting point between Emma Harte and Paul McGill’s private life and the far-reaching business interests that shape it. In the city, their luxurious Fifth Avenue apartment becomes a place of social ease shadowed by the prospect of war, while Sitex’s offices connect their household to oil investment across the United States and beyond.

The Fifth Avenue household

At a gathering in their Fifth Avenue apartment, Emma moves among the guests in an atmosphere of conspicuous wealth and practiced conviviality. Her thoughts are elsewhere: a letter from Frank Harte, recently returned from Berlin, predicts that Britain will be at war before the year ends. The other influential men present also seem aware that the world is nearing catastrophe, though the company maintains the appearance of a celebration. Emma’s concern turns to her two sons, both eligible for military service, and to the devastation of the previous war. The scene makes New York’s affluence feel precarious: the room is warm and opulent, but its inhabitants cannot quite exclude the approaching conflict.

The apartment also represents the established intimacy of Emma and Paul’s life together. Conversation, champagne, and the evening’s gaiety temporarily push Emma’s fears aside. New York is not simply a backdrop to international business; it is the home from which the consequences of that business and of world politics are felt personally.

Sitex and the oil business

New York is a base for Paul’s work with Sitex, the company formerly called the Sydney-Texas Oil Company and renamed at Emma’s suggestion. After the gathering, Emma and Paul travel to East Texas to visit the company, then continue to West Texas, where Paul buys oil leases in Odessa and Midland. On their return journey to New York, Emma questions him about the purchases and about the opposition of his partner, Harry Marriott.

Paul regards expansion as necessary, not reckless. He argues that Marriott prefers to protect what the company has already accumulated, whereas the purchase of oil tankers—once opposed by Marriott—has proved valuable. Paul expects the new leases to yield oil and plans to begin drilling before the end of the year. Emma points out that Paul’s majority shareholding gives him room to act despite Marriott’s objections. New York thus anchors a business network extending from company offices to oil fields in Texas, with investment decisions and corporate power repeatedly discussed on the journey back to the city.

A city facing separation and war

As the prospect of war grows more immediate, New York becomes the setting for a painful change in Emma and Paul’s plans. Paul comes home early from the Sitex offices, unusually preoccupied, and tells Emma that he has booked her passage to England aboard the Queen Elizabeth. He will not accompany her: he must go to Australia to attend to his interests there and consult the men who run his companies, because he fears Japan’s threat to the Pacific.

Emma kneels at Paul’s feet and begs him not to go, fearing that war could trap him abroad and separate them for years. Paul promises that the journey will last no more than two months, and explains that he needs to ensure the Australian operations can continue if the conflict keeps him away longer than usual. Emma understands the obligations attached to his immense holdings even as she dreads the separation. From New York, their business reaches toward Australia and the Pacific, while war threatens to turn the same global connections into barriers between them.