Maurice Legrand, a meek cashier married to a nagging wife, has a secret passion: he's a Sunday painter. He falls in love with Lulu, a young woman dominated by Dédé, the pimp who she works for. Dédé pushes Lulu into a relationship with him.

Cashier Maurice Legrand is married to Adele, a terror. By chance he meets Lucienne, "Lulu", and makes her his mistress. He thinks he finally fallen in love for real, but Lulu is nothing but a streetwalker in love with Dede, her pimp. She only accepts Legrand to satisfy Dede's needs of money.—Yepok

Trapped in a loveless marriage to domineering Adèle, downtrodden Maurice Legrand, a conscientious cashier at a Parisian hosiery firm, seeks solace in painting. To make matters worse, after a chance encounter with young Lulu, a manipulative streetwalker fishing for gentlemen with deep pockets in Montmartre, the sad amateur artist stubbornly refuses to see beyond the obvious: it isn't love that drives statuesque Lulu; it is pure, rapacious opportunism. Now, desperate, self-destructive passion has the final say. Can Maurice escape from the clutches of Lulu's suave pimp boyfriend, Dédé?—Nick Riganas