Lady Pitts is a middle-aged, Newnham-educated lady who was once director of a biscuit factory by day while running a shelter for prostitutes by night. Ernest is a young Polish student who meets Lady Pitts one evening when she is alone and very drunk in a Soho restaurant. Ernest decides to worship this mysterious lady as Dante worshipped Beatrice. But Lady Pitts is a wayward, though determined, woman.