For 18 years, Andrew Crocker-Harris (Pouel Kern) has been a classics teacher at an English boys' school. Although being academically brilliant, he is generally despised as being strict, stern, and humorless. His wife Millie Crocker-Harris (Vera Gebuhr) is younger and vivacious and quite different from her husband. She no longer loves him; she loves another teacher, Frank Hunter (Bjørn Watt-Boolsen). A string of events make Crocker-Harris reflect on his past, contemplate his future, and evaluate how he will finish his tenure at school.