A squabbling married couple provide a counterpoint to young lovers. Sir Alexander Shendryn (Christopher Gilling) can control a regiment but not a wife who believes he is faithless. Meanwhile his ward Blanche (Emily Dobbs), an heiress, is sweet on her cousin, a poor, Scottish cadet who's deemed an unsuitable match. And his wife's tart-tongued companion (Emilie Patry) is engaged in a war of words with Robert Irons's stinking rich and engagingly flippant brewer.