Phillip Wardman, an ordinary young man, sports one eccentricity: a neurotic fear of violence and death. He likes to smell flowers, particularly those in his mother's garden, where stands a statue of the goddess Flora. At his sister's wedding he encounters a living incarnation of Flora in the form of Senta Pelham, an actress happily contemptuous of conventional morality. But, soon it is revealed that Senta has a dark side. Whereas death frightens Phillip, it fascinates her. To prove his love, Senta asks Phillip to murder a stranger.