At the turn of the 19th century into the 20th, 30-year-old, Thrupps College teacher Nicholas Van Tassel is involved in a restaurant fire. Also a victim is Etna Bliss, visiting niece of a fellow professor. Assisting her and her aunt home, the usual staid and controlled Nicholas is so smitten, he courts and asks Etna to marry him. She turns him down. He's distraught. Startled and flattered by his reaction, Etna accepts his proposal for she can't believe a man could love her so. Thus the love affair is one-sided from the beginning.