[2] American chorus girl Myra Deauville is stuck in 1917 London at the height of World War I, unable to find work and book passage home.
There she meets fellow American Roy Cronin, a young soldier in the Canadian Army on convalescent leave after being wounded in France, and impressed by his innocence, invites him to her apartment for tea instead of soliciting his business.
Unaware that Kitty is also a prostitute and that their landlady, Mrs. Hobley, has been forced to run her house as a brothel because her husband is a prisoner-of-war, Roy is persuaded that Myra needs his protection.
Recovering from wounds in battle, Sherwood had gone to Trafalgar Square to join the celebration of the armistice ending the war and found himself next to "a very short and very pretty girl" wearing a small silk American flag pinned to her blouse.
[2] The Broadway production was a two-act two-set play (the bridge and Myra's flat) that opened on January 6, 1930 at the Fulton Theatre, where it ran for only 64 performances.