The impudent, headstrong Petrina, having escaped from a dull boarding house, appears in the house of her guardian, Count Staverton. To her surprise, Staverton is not a decrepit old man at all, but a magnificent young aristocrat, concerned only with frivolous love affairs. It seems that the count is uncomfortable with the very presence of his young ward in the house. But the offended Petrina decides to force this brilliant and inaccessible man to fall at her feet. The beauty makes a cunning plan...