 A feisty, independent young woman, Damophilia Illington ("Phil" for short, hence the title), the daughter of a progressive university professor, is devastated by the sudden death of her father. The town s banker, an arrogant stuffed shirt, wants to marry Phil and has himself declared her guardian. Not wanting to marry him, she quickly leaves town and lands a job at a nearby university as an assistant to a professor of Greek literature (an area in which her father trained her) who is bitter and resentful after the breakup of his engagement to a woman who, it turned out, had been lying to him. "Phil", however, is determined to win him over.