Arabella Cadenhouse, a young widow, decides that her second husband must provide her with the romance that was lacking in her first marriage. She is wooed by Harry Atteridge, an unconventional westerner, until her neighbor Bill, who has loved Arabella since childhood, produces a series of counter-irritants, including Claude Estabrook, a faddist disciple of free love, Peter Harper, a callow youth and Doctor Henry, an absent-minded scientist. Each time Arabella shows signs of becoming too interested in another man, Bill produces another counter-irritant. One by one Arabella's illusions of romance are shattered, until she finally turns to her childhood friend and accepts Bill's offer of marriage.