Reverend Francis Ashby, a rather stuffy professor at St. John's College Oxford, heads off for a walking holiday in Switzerland. High up on a rocky Swiss plateau, Ashby stumbles across two American women: Caroline Hartley and her beautiful eighteen-year-old ward, Elinor. He soon finds the company of the women a charming and refreshing change from his all male, well-ordered world at Oxford. Back in England, he's about to be elected president of his college, a post for a bachelor, when he realizes that his Switzerland experience has altered his views on life. The surprise arrival of his American friends adds to his dilemma, especially when it becomes apparent that both women are competing for his affections.