Does It Pay?

Rich wastrel Baron Chevrial fritters his days and nights away pursuing a series of young lovelies and playing with their affections. He is smitten with the charms of Rosa, dancer of the Opera Comique, but marries the prominent Therese Beauchamp while still remaining involved with Rosa. Eventually a new woman enters his life and for a time he is oblivious to everything else until Rosa reenters his sphere.

Wealthy New York contractor Wilton Demarest falls victim to the wiles of beautiful adventuress Mazora. Soon, he becomes addicted to drugs, neglects his wife and child, and his business is on the verge of ruin. By chance he meets his double, western mining engineer Martin Stanley. Demarest, half mad due to his drug addiction, conceives the fantastic idea of having Stanley take his place in the world enabling him to indulge in his degraded desires. Stanely, penniless and alone in the world accepts the proposition despite his reservations. Demarest drops into oblivion and Stanley picks up the scattered threads of his life, both in business and at home. The "at home" part is what causes complications.

Seth Cartwright abandons his mistress Bernice Archer and their child, Lorna returning to his wife and son. Bernice, in a daze, leaves Lorna, who is adopted by Cartwrght's wife, who knows full well who the child's father is. Unfortunately, she and her husband are killed in a shipwreck, but it turns out Lorna and her real mother are reunited because of the wreck, and settle in a small seaside town. Matters get complicated when Seth Jr. arrives in the town for a vacation and falls in love with Lorna--not knowing that she is his half-sister.

Conchita Cordova sings in the cathedral choir in her village of San Miguelito near the Rio Grande. Millionaire oil man John Rannie, whose oil fields have displaced the peasants, desires Conchita, and when he learns that her fiance, Juan Mendoza, has been employed by Adolf Wylie, a German spy, Rannie threatens to expose Juan unless Conchita gives herself to him.

Ellinor, who was unofficially adopted as an orphan by 'Old Peter,' who maintained a lighthouse on a virtually deserted beach, has grown up wild and nearly silent. As she blossoms into full womanhood, she longs to know more about the world. One day a mutinous sailor swims to shore and declares that they are married, after tossing a pair of rings into the sea. He soon flees, but promises to return for her. Wealthy widower George Hudson, the richest man in the nearby port village, also falls for the fascinating, attractive young woman. He convinces her to go to a finishing school for a year and then marry him. They both find that the sea still holds a powerful pull on the soul. Which is stronger: love or the sea's magic spell?

Warren Schuyler, a wealthy widower in a small Eastern town, is highly-respected until the citizens are financially ruined by devaluation of the oil stock he sold them. His daughter Ellen's New York socialite fiance' Roy Phelps deserts her after her father dies, but fellow townsman John Barrett comes to her aid, and she marries him out of gratitude. After three years of irritation from her mother-in-law, she again meets Roy and is persuaded to leave her husband and child, but on perceiving Roy's fraudulence, and following a serious illness, she reunites with John.

Nekhludoff, a Russian nobleman serving on a jury, discovers that the young girl on trial, Katusha, is someone he once seduced and abandoned and that he himself bears responsibility for reducing her to crime. He sets out to redeem her and himself in the process.

Faced with the tragic responsibility of choosing between the happiness of her 16-year-old daughter Pamela or saving the life of an innocent man, Marie Baudin's first impulse is to sacrifice all for her own. But she has second thoughts that bring complications to all.

A woman writes about her sister's tragedy, vowing to help others in similar situations: Because Bettina longs to leave her country home, her loving mother sends her and her serious-minded elder sister to London, accepting their aunt's invitation to visit and allow Bettina to be introduced to society. The girls' dressmaker steals the aunt's photograph and sends it to a woman who, disguised as their aunt, leads the girls to a brothel. After the elder sister escapes, aided by her concerned male companion, she races in a cab to her aunt's home, but is frustrated in her attempt to rescue Bettina by her aunt's infirm state, the inefficiency of the police, and her own inability to remember the location of the house. She finds her cab driver, but he is drunk and soon dies in an accident. After falling ill, the sister, convinced by a dream that Bettina has died, resolves to devote her life to saving other women.

When Bob Stratton returns from war in France, he soon discovers his ranch in the hands of a pretty girl, Mary Thorne, who explains that upon her father's death she became the sole owner. Thorne had been the executor of Stratton's will, and thinking that Bob had been killed, he had appropriated the place for himself.

When a train crash kills Horace Barney, the heir to a fortune that his doctors and guardians were planning to extort the unscrupulous trio quickly substitute his double Jack Trevor who by chance was on the same locomotive but knocked unconscious. Once awakened, Jack realizes the duplicity but plays along to try and foil the plot and save the estate for Barney’s cousin Helen who is the true heir and with whom he has fallen in love.

Former Viennese orchestra leader Anton von Barwig has been searching for his daughter, taken by his ex-wife, for many years. The search has reduced him to penury since a crooked detective swindled him. One day he meets a young society girl, Helene Stanton, seeking music lessons for her fiancé, Beverly Cruger, and recognizes her as his child. Barwig finally confronts her foster father, who had run away with his wife in Vienna, who pleads with him to stay silent for his daughter’s future. He acquiesces but Helene discovers the relationship and brushes social considerations aside to be reunited with him.

Dishonored by playboy John Radon, simple country girl Stella Dean flees to the city to hide her shame. Leading a disreputable life she eventually obtains great wealth as a courtesan known as the Black Nightingale. One day she meets Milton Taylor, an artist from her hometown who knew her when she was an innocent, and he asks her to pose as his model of the Madonna. Stella agrees and feels cleansed by the experience, however when Milton discovers Stella's reputation he begins to drink and leaves her, his illusions shattered. Repentant, Stella converts her mansion into a refuge for foundlings and returns to her hometown of Pleasantville reconciling with Milton.

Queen of the serials Pearl White gets herself into plenty of trouble up Klondike way as a young maiden named Tiger's Cub.

Loutish Teddy Brant feeling trapped by his marriage and family commitments to the sweet Rose and their infant daughter Helen fakes his suicide and embarks on a dissolute life. Thinking herself free Rose remarries, and time passes contently. Years later, Teddy, now a hopeless derelict, wanders the country straying one night into the waiting room of a train station. He sees a young girl being accosted by an elderly gentleman who tries to entice her home. Teddy thinks nothing of the incident until he finds a purse lying on the seat and learns that the girl is his daughter Helen. Teddy hastens after them and in the ensuing fight, strangles Helen's assailant and then flees. Helen is arrested for the murder but is acquitted when Teddy staggers into the police station and confesses to the crime.

Van Bibber is spending his vacation with Colonel Paddock's party at the ranch owned by Paddock's friend. The peace and quiet is often disturbed by a desperado known as The Mad Racer, who has been hired to keep Van out of the Buggy Race.

Millionaire Kent Whitney is warned by Bob Harkness, one of her rejected suitors, about the fickleness of his girlfriend, socialite Myra Hastings. Together they concoct a scheme to teach her a lesson. Kent invites Myra home to meet his family, and she goes, expecting to find an atmosphere of elegance and refinement. Instead, she is greeted by Kent's eccentric father, who affronts her with crude jokes; Kent's mother is introduced reclining on a couch, surrounded by yapping dogs and Myra flees. Upon discovering that the evening was a ruse, Myra decides to retaliate. She hires a fake minister, pretends to marry Kent and then deserts him, leaving behind a message explaining that the ceremony was a farce. Kent pursues Myra and persuades her that a real marriage is in order.

A silent film about the famous Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean, whose life intertwines with a young woman, Anna Damby, and Countess Koefeld. Kean, inspired by the Countess, becomes entangled in a plot involving Anna, her guardian, and a roué named Lord Melville. The story culminates in a benefit performance where Kean's passionate denouncement of the Prince of Wales leads to his downfall.

A cabaret hostess falls for a young aristocrat, ignoring her friend's warning that the affair will end in heartache.

Carteret, an artist, adopts Célestine, a French orphan who gives evasive answers to questions about a certain young "man", her close acquaintance. A detective observes the movements of Célestine and the mysterious stranger, whom he believes is involved in a murder case. The artist, realizing that he is in love with his adopted daughter, is about to propose to her when she "runs away" with the stranger, who is actually the girl he had adopted and who has married an army officer, with Célestine acting as his proxy. Delighted by the turn of events, Carteret decides to marry Célestine immediately.