Mlle. Julie Bon-Bon, the Gay Parisienne, has tricked the well-and-truly married Canon Honeycombe into signing a proposition of marriage, and she now arrives at his country parsonage to sue him for breach of promise. By this means she and her accomplice/lover, Adolphe Pompier, intend to stock their bottom drawer at the unworldly Canon's cost.
But, in his hasty (and innocent) original encounter with Mlle. Bon-bon, Honeycombe has given her the wrong visiting card, and Julie has summonsed his neighbour, Amos Dingle. Dingle once had his life saved by the good Canon and so agrees to take his place in an undefended case for the sake of peace, in spite of the anathema heaped on him by the statuesque Mrs. Honeycombe, who lends her encouragement to her daughter's lover who has been briefed for the prosecution.
Julie arrives and proceeds to bewitch old Major Fossdyke, chairman of the jury, and not unexpectedly wins ten thousand pounds in damages.
The distraught Canon confesses all, and flees to a European spa town where he fakes a report of his death in a mountain accident. But everyone concerned descends on the spa where Honeycombe is hiding disguised as a Scot, and after a good deal of coming and going, the truth is revealed when Norah Honeycombe's Tom turns the tables on Pompier by blackmailing him over his occupation as a professional spy.
Julie gives up her charade, and all is allowed to end happily.