Count de Croisset becomes infatuated with the star dancer Odette Blant. She accepts his offer of marriage, but must promise to abandon the stage forever. She sorely misses performing, however, and when the theatre manager Delage asks her to step in after his star is injured, she agrees. Her husband is at the theatre and recognizes her. Thinking she is having an affair with Delage, he challenges him to a duel. Each duellist must swallow a pill, one of which supposedly contains a deadly poison. This is Delage’s idea, allowing him (with the help of his uncle, the apothecary Michot) to engineer a happy ending for all concerned.