In Paris an Apache dancer weds his ex-fiancée's sister for revenge but learns to love.
When her father, an indigent artist, dies, Sylvia Lacey goes to live with her Aunt Martha and her uncle, Judge Trent, in New England, where she is unwanted and humiliated. Though she and John Dunham, her uncle's young law partner, fall in love, she believes he intends to marry the daughter of a wealthy neighbor.
The impoverished Harlow family of New England is forced to take in summer boarders. Teenaged niece Tressie welcomes the change and promptly falls in love with a wealthy young guest named Norman Minot. Although Norman returns Tressie’s affection, he is driven away by a fortune-hunting mother who wants him to marry her daughter. Robert Kitteridge, a scheming artist friend of Norman's, takes Tressie on a sailboat outing, during which they narrowly escape death when their boat is rammed by a steamship. After being put ashore the next morning in Boston, MA, Robert takes Tressie to his studio and attempts to seduce her.
Unattractive and poor Polly Gordon, is taken to the college dance by eligible Vincent DePuyster only as part of a fraternity initiation. Suitors flock to her, however, when she inherits half a million dollars from her aunt, but she grows cynical and dismisses them.
Patricia Parker, on the advice of her father, leaves her life as a chorus girl for the bucolic surroundings of Silas Wainwright, an old friend of her father's.
Mazie, a shop-girl of New York City's Little Ireland, goes to the aid of a young man in formal attire involved in a street fight. Though badly beaten, he bears a strong resemblance to Lord Lytton, the hero of a magazine story Mazie is reading in installments. Although he is, in reality, a soda clerk, Mazie permits his attentions, and together they read the "Sloppy Stories" yarn about English nobility.
The adopted Irish daughter of the Rosensteins, Second Avenue pawnshop owners, Rose is much sought after by Tim McCarthy, a wealthy Irish contractor many years her senior. Meanwhile, Nat, her adopted brother, is accused of stealing from his firm and is arrested and put in jail; Rosenstein, heartbroken, becomes seriously ill.
Molly, a glamorous clothing model in New York, though yearning for a life of luxury, spurns the advances of her boss's son in favor of a shipping clerk, late of the backwoods.
Working as a wardrobe girl in a cheap traveling stock company, Mamie Judd secretly loves Jenks, the leading man, who scarcely notices the young girl. She saves Neal Selden, son of a small-town banker, from being accused of robbery and murder, acts committed by the company's manager and leading lady.
Bob Mortimer, an unsuccessful traveling salesman, picks up the wrong valise and finds it full of money. This gives him the confidence, which he has previously lacked, to convince the townspeople to invest in a new factory, prevent Josiah Wiggins from absconding with the invested funds, and marry Miriam Wiggins.
Gretchen Ann runs away from her foster parents but is sheltered first by Bill Kelley, a train brakeman, then by elderly oilman Pete Sebastian. After Gretchen keeps Sebastian from being duped by a medium, he sends her to a fashionable school, asking that she agree to marry him when she returns.
Will the orphan girl win her hero in spite of scheming relatives who seek to keep her in the background?
The Kostomarov family falls apart when a female relative joins the household.
Actress Fay McMillan finds her child, Pauline, whom she deserted years ago, in an orphanage, but Monty, her financer, objects to her taking the girl back.
The daughter of a count and the son of a shoemaker, both Hungarian, fall in love in America. As they're about to marry, the young woman is called back to Europe. When her betrothed goes after her, difficulties ensue.
Rosie Cooper is a cashier in a cheap restaurant and among those she favors is ... Smith, the bakery boy. Rose is a 'wise kid' all right, but it takes her some time to see through a shiny young thin model gent... The girl entertains his advances because he means romance to her. But he proves his shallow character and Rosie is glad to turn to Jimmy, the bakery youth.
Teddy Harmon, a society girl preoccupied with pleasure, is persuaded by her father's serious-minded secretary that she is in love with him, but meeting his family, she becomes bored and seeks the society of Gary McVeigh, a wealthy neighbor. At a gambling house, she finds her father with a dashing young widow, and later, the proprietor, though ostensibly a friend, tries to force his attentions on her and she is taken to jail in a raid. She is rescued by Gary, and the secretary, learning of her father's financial difficulties, breaks the engagement.
In Africa a typist is framed for killing a diamond smuggler who betrayed her father.
Jack Banning is a motorcycle cop by day and undercover agent by night. Disguising himself as "Strongarm Samson," Banning infiltrates a gang of smugglers headed by Richard Courtney.
A husband, jealous of his wife's flirtations with another man, hatches a plot to make his wife jealous.