Finding himself penniless, Lawrence Ashmore, whose late father was ruined on the stock exchange, obtains a position as a reporter. Ashmore is assigned to investigate the reported fatal illness of Jesse Craven, one of Wall Street's financial monarchs.
Montgomery Seaton, one of the idle rich, pays more attention to his friends' business than to his marital situation.
Rethna works hard to organize her fellow factory employees against the miserly, uncaring owner, Henry Burke. Then, realizing that she needs money to fight Burke, she begins an affair with his unscrupulous son Harry.
In 1869, enemies of railroad magnate Richard Strong attempt to ruin him. Richard thwarts them, largely through the help of Charles Dalton, but then Charles tries to seduce Elinor, Richard's wife. Although she rebuffs Charles, Richard accuses her of infidelity, so Elinor leaves him and goes to Paris. Richard follows her, but, caught in the middle of the 1870 riots, he cannot get near her. Charles, also in Paris, finally convinces Richard that nothing had come of his interest in Elinor, but Richard now believes that Elinor no longer loves him.
When penniless Westie Phillips briefly meets wealthy Martha Gorham, he falls in love, but Martha forgets the encounter. Harry Arnold, courting Martha, invites her out sailing and arranges to have the yacht wrecked near an uncharted island so that he can be alone with her until rescuers arrive. Meanwhile, without knowing Martha is on board, Westie secures a position on the yacht.
For Nita Valyez, who is half-Spanish and half-Irish, Carlos represents potential violence and danger, two things to which she is both attracted and repelled. In contrast, she has only a passing interest in Big Jim, the town's honest, good-hearted sheriff. Then, after Carlos kills a faro dealer, he forces Nita to make an escape with him.
Priscilla Worth, an innocent country girl, goes to the city to visit her aunt, who has sent for her, thinking that her childlike simplicity will afford a welcome relief to Vincent Morgan, a wealthy bachelor and man-about-town. The plan works, but soon after Vincent and Priscilla's marriage, Vincent, besieged by his friends to return to his gay life and suspicious of his wife's relationship with Durant--an artist who has painted her portrait--yields to temptation.
Indore, an Indian woman married to the English Captain Terence Unger is imprisoned by the prince after she gives birth to a baby daughter named Agatha. On his deathbed, Unger beseeches his friend Francis Duane to care for Agatha which Duane does, returning to England with the infant.
A widowed woman marries her husband's brother, who soon proves to be a tyrant stepfather to his adopted son.
On a beach in southern Italy, Gianna Russelli practices her dancing with her devoted brother Russino, looking forward to the day when she will begin formal dance studies. One day the beautiful Countess Michetti comes to the village and engages in a flirtation with Russino, but when her former lover, Prince Viscomte, arrives with his closest friend, Count Paul Trovelli, the countess resumes her affair with the prince.
U.S. Navy Lieutenant George Blenton becomes drunk at an official reception, and his fiancee, Jane Ravenslee, the captain's daughter, breaks their engagement. After war is declared, George, entrusted with a secret code book to deliver to an English admiral, drinks and loses the book which German spies recover. During a private court-martial he is offered a pistol for suicide. After drinking again, he fires a shot, but still lives. Put ashore on the island of Tafofu "to rot," George, hating the U.S., moves in with Lehua, a half-white who tries to wean him from drink.
A young man brings his new worldly Parisian wife back home to Pennsylvania.
Marama Thurston leaves her fashionable boarding school in America when her ailing father Jim Thurston, a plantation owner on Fiji, begs her to protect the rubber crop from his thieving son-in-law. Upon arriving on the island, Marama learns that she is a half-caste. Traumatized, she assumes native customs and agrees to marry Ratu Madri, the island's ruler. Templeton, an American fugitive living on Fiji, falls in love with her, but Marama rejects him, having pledged herself already to the Fiji chief. As Marama dances the prenuptial rite, Templeton attempts to rescue her. The natives seize the American, and Marama threatens suicide if they harm him. The couple escape during a hurricane, and soon after a yacht arrives with the news that Templeton has been exonerated of murder charges. Their problems thus resolved, they return to America to wed. A lost film.
The Lily
The Family Upstairs
A New York fur saleswoman falls for a man she meets on the subway and must decide if she wants to accept a much dreamed for work transfer to Paris, or stay and get married.
Melodrama set in Spain. This film is considered lost.
Janet Randall, a department store clerk who longs for a fling at high society, ignores the love of the poor but honest Dan Cassidy. When vacation time comes, Janet goes to a fashionable hotel and there meets her idol, society favorite Monte Moreville. Upon requesting the bill at the end of four days, Janet discovers that the tariff is more than she can afford, and Monte comes to her rescue by offering to bail her out. In exchange, Janet must pose as his wife to fend off a woman who is threatening a breach of promise suit.
Rebecca Butler, tired of poverty, takes a job in a Broadway chorus line and determines to marry a millionaire.
Wade Hildreth is sent to New York from London to receive a diamond necklace for Lady Gwendolyn from the jeweler Arabin. A gang of crooks led by Pete Fielding, known as "The Shadow," plans to keep Hildreth from going to Arabin's until they have robbed the store. Actress Morn Light, whom the Shadow loves, agrees to entice Hildreth to her apartment to be imprisoned. When she warns Hildreth because she wants to avenge her father's death, which was caused by the Shadow, the Shadow overhears and captures them both.