Arriving in Washington, a freshman senator gets an experienced advisor who warns him not to continue a heated feud with his state's senior salon, held over from his father. But later in a drunken jag, he blurts out secret evidence that can end the career of the older man.

The story, set 15 years after the Crucifixion, of the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, who is depicted as a victim of circumstances.