Nat Ramsey gets into a car accident just a week before he is to be married to Caroline Braxley. He is uninjured, but his real problem is the girl who was in the car with him: Lee Ann Deehart. Caroline does not know about the other girls that he has been roaming around with, even though it is perfectly normal for a young man from high society to run around with girls called 'demimondaines' — independent, clever girls who reject the snobbery of the higher class and live in rooming-houses in Memphis. The trouble with Lee Ann is that she gets out of the wrecked car and runs straight into the old forest, which is known to be dangerous. The police are keen to find her; not for an official case, but because the editors of the newspaper which was running the story of the accident want to know that she's safe. Together with the police, Nat drives around town and speaks to Lee Ann's friends, as he hopes they'll have some idea of where she is. He begins to receive threatening phone calls from unknown women, all of whom warm him to stop looking for Lee Ann. The callers reveal that she was depressed, and took the accident as an opportunity to escape him and her past life. Nat does not know what to make of these calls, but Lee Ann's disappearance left him feeling as though he was in love with her — so he persists. Very soon it becomes clear that Lee Ann's friends are hiding her and lying for her, but there is no way to prove this. Much to Nat's surprise, Caroline does not break off the engagement; instead, she rallies to help him find Lee Ann. She goes to speak to the demimondaines individually, but it is Fern Morris, Nat's ex-girlfriend, who gives them a clue about where Lee Ann is. She is staying with her grandmother at the cellar - she had wanted to avoid the publicity of being 'found' because that would bring unwanted attention to her personal life. Nat is relieved that she is found, but he is then pre-occupied by what Caroline has to say. They drive out of Memphis, and she reveals to him that she envies the freedom of the demimondaines — they have the ability to escape their lives and their men, while she herself does not. She longs for a similar freedom, and tells Nat that she realized the closest she could come to that freedom was to protect their marriage by saving him. Years later, when Nat decides to become a university professor instead of continuing on with his father's firm, she supports him because she recognizes that freedom only comes with the power to shape your own life.