When she is caught up in a suffragette march in the summer of 1909, Eveline Fenton's life changes forever. During the march she meets Constance Mornington, and though the two girls are from very different backgrounds—Eveline is a grocer's daughter while Connie is the daughter of a wealthy doctor—the pair soon become life-long friends. The girls are both forced to keep their political beliefs from their families: Eveline's father doesn't approve of the movement and believes a woman's place is in the home, while Connie's parents are more concerned with respectability. When Connie falls for a lowly bank clerk she is forced to make a choice between her family and the man she loves. Meanwhile Eveline finds herself attracted to a gentleman she meets at the suffragette meetings, but must determine whether Laurence Jones-Fairbrook is merely dallying with her affections.