In the early days of World War I, nurse Laura Mattson (Diana Wynyard) enjoys a tryst with Lt. Geoffrey Aiken (Robert Young), who is promptly mortally wounded on his first mission. Pregnant and alone, Laura accepts a marriage proposal from soldier Ned Seward (Lewis Stone), who promises to raise her child as his own, as Laura swears her child will know no war. A generation later, Ned is secretary of state, desperately trying to negotiate peace with the increasingly belligerent state of Eurasia, and Laura's grown son Bob (Phillips Holmes) is newly engaged to Peggy Chase (Ruth Selwyn). The forces of history coalesce to tear Laura's family apart as drawing-room differences come up against technological terrors and treachery most foul. A snapshot of the then-future world of 1940, this eerily prescient parable makes a number of remarkably accurate predictions, including the Second World War, blitzkrieg bombing raids, television and video phones!