Elspeth Marner is a seventeen-year-old premiere danseuse. Frank Masterson is the most hated as well as the most respected critic of dramatic art in New York. When the story opens, Elspeth, flushed with applause, enters her dressing room where her mother and the maid rush to do her bidding. The next morning, in bed, Elspeth reads Masterson’s scathing criticism: that her real name is doubtless Lizzie Schmitt; that she is spoiled and petulant and not at all a lady, etc. Elspeth is furious, hysterical, angry and her mother, after telephoning Masterson to tell him her opinion of him, calls in the doctor. He sees that it is only a case of jaded nerves and in spite of the mother’s protestations, orders the girl away, alone. Elspeth is sent to the seashore and placed in charge of some simple fisher folk. At first, Elspeth is inclined to be willful and very trying but gradually the kindliness of Mother Burnes wins her over. Meantime, to get away from the confusion of the city life, Masterson, incognito, takes a small fishing shack at the seashore. The two meet, and neither recognizes the other. His friendship ripens; each discovers himself becoming younger, happier, gayer until on a fishing trip one day, when Elspeth is almost drowned, they realize that they are madly in love with each other. But arriving at the Justice of the Peace office, they, for the first time, learn the other’s true identity. There is defiance, hesitation, petulance for a time. Then all ends happily.