Cleo lives in Marseilles and works as a waitress in a waterfront dive. A stranger entices her into coming to Paris to take dancing lessons, but instead she is taken to a baron, who betrays her. In spite of this inauspicious start, Cleo becomes a successful and renowned actress, but her feelings about men have never recovered. She loathes them and uses them only for the money they offer her, which she then hands over to a penniless girl.