Emily Foster (Koo Stark) is an American-born seventeen-year-old brought up in London. Her father died when she was a small child, while her mother, Margaret Foster (Sarah Brackett), is supported by a lover. The film, set in 1928, follows Emily as she returns home from a finishing school in Switzerland to her mother's English country house in the English countryside, where she meets several characters who would like to seduce her, and follows her induction into sensual pleasures.