Two young men from the Navy fall in love with an actress.
Anna, only daughter of Felice Pastorino, a rich Genoese merchant, falls in love with a young sailor, Eugenio Devoto, with whom she has exchanged only a few words. Pastorino, a kind-hearted man, sincerely loves his daughter but is also very attached to money and would like to marry her to his cousin Alessandro Raffo, a man who is no longer young but wealthy, narrow-minded and materialistic.
It is 1917, the period of the First World War when Italy is fighting Austria-Hungary. Lucilla di Torrebruna leaves high school and returns to her father, a colonel in the cavalry, who lives at San Donà di Piave.
