Five naive English children find themselves on their own at a strange inn on the Marne when their mother is hospitalized. Sponsored, more or less, by a mysterious Englishman, Eliot, who comes and goes, they are endured by the two proprietresses Zizi, who is trying to maintain her attraction for Eliot, and Madame Corbet, jealous of his attentions to Zizi. The children become the vortex of mysterious activities, mounting tensions and final violent eruption. Deft handling of budding adolescence.