To relieve her father’s bankruptcy, Marie marries Henri de Régnier despite being in love with Pierre Louÿs. When Pierre returns from Algeria with his mistress Zohra, Marie immediately engages in a passionate secret affair with him, posing for his forbidden erotic photography collection.
As their liaison continues, Pierre’s possessiveness turns cruel; in a climactic moment of manipulation, he deliberately maneuvers Henri into an adjacent room to overhear them making love. Rather than breaking under this humiliation, Marie asserts her autonomy: she takes control of Pierre’s darkroom and camera, takes lovers of her own, and begins publishing poetry under the masculine pseudonym Gérard d'Houville.
Marie becomes pregnant with Pierre’s child, giving birth to a son named Pierre ('Tigre'). Henri, fully aware of the truth, accepts the child as his legal heir to avoid public scandal and maintain their household. By the conclusion, Pierre finds himself isolated and physically deteriorating, while Marie emerges as an accomplished, published literary figure who successfully maintains both her social marriage and her personal creative freedom, having outgrown her former mentor.