Although they have never met, Syrilla first fell in love with Aristide, Duc de Savigne, when she was nine years old Now she is eighteen, he is thirty, and she is overjoyed when a marriage of convenience is proposed Living quietly in the country with her father, she is unaware that Aristide's scandalous exploits in Paris have made his name a byword for debauchery Aristide declines to meet his mother's choice of bride, vowing that, after the ceremony, he will return to the pleasures of the capital