After her father the Earl of Cuttesdale suffers a riding injury, his lovely young daughter Lady Vilma accompanies him to Paris, where they are to stay at a friend’s Rue St. Honoré home while he receives treatment from a Parisian expert. Because he is a proud man the Earl wants no one to know he is temporarily disabled – so they travel under one of their lesser-known names, calling themselves Colonel and Miss Crawshaw.
To Vilma’s astonishment the celebrated hotelier Cezar Ritz arrives at their door with a strange request – to borrow some of the house’s chandeliers for the hotel. After agreeing to help him, Vilma soon finds herself at The Ritz, where she has an unpleasant encounter with an over-amorous French Comte – and is rescued by a dashing Englishman: the Marquis of Lynworth.
Assuming that Vilma is a lowly electrician’s assistant, the Marquis is nevertheless taken with her – and soon he is escorting her around Paris, introducing her to all the sights, the restaurants and sophisticated society. And although the handsome Marquis has all London’s Society ladies, not to mention the Cocottes of Paris, at his feet – and despite the fact that his mother has promised his hand in marriage to Princess Helgie of Whitenberg – he finds himself bewitched with Vilma. For her part, she too is deeply in love – but how can she tell him now that everything he knows about her is a lie?