Kitty Villiers, a properly brought up young lady, lives in late-Victorian seclusion in a walled home in the English countryside - and it is generally accepted she will marry her cousin Edward. But Fate intervenes in the form of Robert Franks, an artist. After her stern father slashes the portrait that Franks has painted of her and forbids her to ever see him again, the rebellious Kitty falls in love and elopes with the gallant Robert, abandoning her family, friends and life. But during their blissful Bohemian honeymoon she finds that Robert is already married. Her life then takes her to the Russia of the Tsars, a marriage, war and revolution and a flight across Siberia to the prosperity of America before the crash of the stock market. But her life's journey is far from over...