After crashing an expensive stock item in Paris, Tony is penniless and homeless. He convinces an old flame to take him in and soon teams up with his taxi-driving friend, Bob, to try his luck at the races by betting on horses. At the track he meets and charms Muriel, the mistress of a wealthy industrialist named Gabriel, and she invites him along on a skiing holiday in the Alps as cover so she can meet Gabriel when he’s free from his wife. The wife is Béatrice Dumonceaux, who quickly falls for Tony, setting up a web of attractions and deceptions that Tony navigates with a wry, restless energy.
The lure of new temptations grows when he encounters the enigmatic Baroness Minna von Strasshofer Baroness Minna von Strasshofer, who offers to take him as her companion aboard her yacht, moored at Cannes, with Bob riding as crew. The Baroness’s insatiable demands wear Tony down, yet he also befriends a naive young passenger, Véronique, whom he meets during this sea-bound escapade. Véronique says she’s bound for Tahiti to claim an inheritance and won’t sleep with him, a claim that places him in a complicated triangle of desire and manipulation.
Things take a rugged turn when the yacht reaches Tahiti. The Baroness discovers a newer, younger prospect and, jealous of Tony’s attentions to Véronique, she slings him and Bob off the boat. A drunken old beachcomber then hints at a possible fortune: a workable manganese deposit on a deserted atoll. The group — Véronique in particular — sets out to verify the claim, and they soon stumble upon a mineshaft. Bringing ore back to Tahiti for analysis proves its value, and after strenuous bargaining, Tony sells the mineral rights to an English businessman, thinking his luck is turning again.
But the twist of the tale lands hard. When Tony hands Véronique the cheque, she does not embrace him but turns to her own father, the man who had planted the manganese and had even posed as the beachcomber. That revelation redefines the whole gambit and leaves Tony’s fortunes as precarious as ever. The couple’s fortunes collapse, and penniless once more, Tony and Bob work their way back to France as crew. In Paris, a Rolls-Royce-owning wealthy widow spots Tony, invites him into her lavish apartment, and puts him to bed for attention. He is last seen, exhausted by her demands, wandering the city and running free through Paris, a wanderer once again in a world of glitter, schemes, and shifting loyalties.
