After marrying a drunken playboy, a young girl tries to capture his heart while he's sober.

Kay Brannan is so bored with Carvel that when a traffic diversion forces hundreds of partying football fans to drive through town on their way to the Yale-Harvard football game, she can barely tolerate her family and prospective suitor Elmer. One of the fans, Robert Dakin, a socially prominent surgeon from Boston, asks her for directions to a popular roadhouse, and takes her there to join in the fun. Later Bob becomes so drunk that he insists that they have a justice of the peace marry them. Kay is not quite so drunk, but she agrees, thinking about her boring existence in Carvel. The next morning, after a minor car crash, Bob suggests that they go to his parents' home in Boston to straighten things out, as the newspapers already have the story on their wedding. Bob's parents like Kay but are shocked that Bob, who is engaged to socialite Priscilla, would be so foolhardy. His father tells Bob that he has to get out of the potential scandal himself or have his career ruined, so Bob suggests to Kay that they pretend to be happily married for six months and then quietly get a divorce. Although hurt, she agrees, and after a staged "honeymoon" aboard the Dakin family yacht, they return to Boston. Gradually each begins to fall in love with the other, but they still keep each other at arm's length. When Priscilla returns from a European holiday, she and Bob begin seeing each other secretly. One night, when Bob is seeing Priscilla, Kay gets a telephone call from Bob's clinic urgently summoning him to perform emergency brain surgery on Jimmy, a young patient. She then goes to Priscilla's apartment to get Bob after Priscilla refuses to let her talk to Bob over the phone. Bob starts the operation, but is not sure that he is sober enough to save Jimmy, so he lets his colleague Dr. Underwood complete the delicate surgery. At home, Bob feels like a failure. Kay hesitatingly starts to tell him about her feelings, but Priscilla calls and she leaves. She tells Bob's parents that she is returning home, and a short time later the Carvel newspaper mentions that Bob is rumored to be leaving for Reno for a divorce. Kay takes a walk and meets Elmer, who proposes, but just then Bob drives up. After telling Kay that he has lost his way to Reno and never wants to find it, they drive off together.