Beautiful young Clara de Saumarez, strong-willed and impulsive, runs away from her aristocratic family to London to become an actress after her father punishes her with a dog whip. In London, she becomes an acclaimed actress, but disregards societal conventions by living with her theatre manager, Vasty Vaughan. Clara's beauty inspires the love of three men: the lecherous Vaughan, the handsome but rigidly Calvinistic curate Edward Mantell, and the kind Socialist Percival Glynn. But as Clara's story unfolds, she begins to be aware of the unpleasant realities around her, including her own...