A Frenchman who is stranded in America while his ship is held in the New York harbor finds work in a girls’ boarding school stables. His sullen attitude isolates him from his coworkers and the girls; all except one, a teenager named Vivienne. She constantly tries to talk to him after the other girls are gone, asking him about his home in France, even though he often gives her angry answers about the nature of men there. When he takes the schoolgirls out on rides, he brings them up to a spot on the Palisades where they can look down at the river, although he never explains what they’re looking at until one day he and Vivienne go alone. He shows her his ship docked in the harbor and explains how it is his home more than any country or person. She wants to kiss him, but he pulls away. Around this time, the Frenchman has started biking down to a store in town and talking to one of the mannequins in the window every night. One day, Vivienne and her brother see him there, and after some rude remarks between them the brother swings at him. Vivienne comments on the Frenchman's disheveled, drunk appearance, and this realization seems to make the Frenchman change his ways so he no longer drinks so heavily. Later on, the Frenchman is in a bar with one of his coworkers when Vivienne rushes in, telling him that his ship is on fire. Together they hurry to the docks, where although the Frenchman knows the ship better than anyone, the police won’t let him on to help put out the flames. Distraught, he and Vivienne go into a nearby bar. There, another Frenchman finds him and offers for them to go north together. With this arrangement made, the Frenchman dismisses Vivienne, whose heartbreak prevents her from looking back as she leaves.