1950's Paris. After a homosexual experience in adolescence, David represses the impulses he finds unacceptable. In Paris he has an affair with Hella Lincoln, and proposes marriage. She considers his proposal on a trip to Spain, David has an affair lasting several months with Giovanni, an Italian bartender. Still unable to reconcile homosexuality with the life he envisions for himself, David travels with Hella, but is discovered by her in a gay bar with a sailor as he struggles to accept himself.