In Greece in 1936, Rico and Margot are married in name only. He pursues other women while she, rich and beautiful, has many suitors, the most bearable being Raoul. Outwardly frivolous, what she wants is not an extramarital affair but a grand passion. One hot night in August she sees from her window a man pursued by the police and on an impulse lets him hide in her bedroom. He is Michel, an anti-regime militant whose courage, idealism, and humanity overwhelm her. To hide him from the police, she gets him hired as chauffeur to Raoul and the two then disappear together. Rico and Raoul try to find her, but in vain. In 1967 a young woman visits Greece, trying to find traces of her parents: Margot and Michel.