Betty Haverhill, an attractive California girl, begins a coming-of-age sojourn, embarking from San Francisco on an Italian freighter bound for ports in El Salvador, Panama, Venezuela, Spain and Italy.
Betty develops an attraction for and engages in a mild flirtation with Mik Finsch, an older, mysterious man-of-the-world, but when she accepts an offer of drinks in his cabin, his amorous advances become unacceptable to her and Betty has to fend him off.
Betty tells Ted that she could have managed the situation herself and that she still has no interest in marrying him and wishes he had not come.
Another passenger tells Betty that Finsch's pride has been wounded and he will get revenge on Ted somehow.
That night, Ted becomes missing and a typewritten suicide note is found.