After a stirring performance, Cleo Martell, a renowned stage actress, is visited in her dressing room by Gordon Trent, a too ardent admirer. When Cleo's husband enters, a fight ensues, and Trent kills his rival in the struggle. Jack Stanley arrives on the scene to help but is accused of the murder by Cleo and is sent off to prison. The opportunistic Trent marries Jack's rich fiancée Helen Forde, who believes that her former lover is guilty of unfaithfulness. Jealous of the arrangement, Cleo eventually tells Helen the truth about the killing, causing Betty, Helen's daughter, to cry over her mother's unhappiness. Moved by the girl's tears, Cleo joins forces with Helen against Trent, and the two women go West where Jack, escaped from prison, works as a cowboy.

Upon seeing millionaire Lee Brooks's picture in the paper, Julie Le Fabrier, a romantic young model in Madame Swan's dress shop, immediately falls in love with him. Soon afterwards, Julie is sent to the Grand Tides Hotel to deliver a dress to Madame Ricardo, an attractive young woman whose bills are paid by Lee's lovestruck father, Mason Brooks. Having seen her husband, whom she believed to be in South America, on the grounds, Madame Ricardo deserts the hotel, so Julie dons the gown and masquerades as Mason's mistress.

Angela, a lovely young woman of eighteen, lives with her grandmother in Virginia but knows very little about her mother, Lady Eldone, who after the death of Angela's father, moved to Europe and married an English army captain. When Captain Eldone is reported dead, Lady Eldone returns to the United States determined to marry a wealthy man.

A father-and-son team of cons gamble their firm’s assets. The son is caught investing money that doesn't belong to him and is indicted on a swindling charge. The plot gets spicy when the District Attorney handling the case is his former sweetheart's husband. This situation gives the DA an opportunity to prosecute his romantic rival.

In their small village, Romanian peasant girl Katinka Veche falls in love with the studious Jan Drakachu. Jan wins a scholarship to an American university eventually becoming a successful engineer. Unbeknownst to him, Katinka, whom he had to leave behind in the village, is sold into slavery by her cruel, dissolute father. Her owner, Victor Dravich, beats her into submission forcing her to become his mistress in his Syrian gambling den. When the house is raided, Dravich takes her on his travels around the world until they finally settle in a small Arizona mining camp. Broken, she sees Jan but is too ashamed to speak to him sending instead for her old tutor Boris. Upon arrival Boris kills Dravich but is shot by the sheriff. Katinka, now free, follows Jan to New York. After further travail the pair are finally reunited.

Mrs. Standing, an old-fashioned country mother, sacrifices to put her son John through college so that he might have a better life. Upon completing school, John goes to the city where his financial success blinds him to the basic values taught to him by his mother.

During a raging storm, a baby is washed up on shore on an island in Greece and is adopted by the wealthy Stanhopes, who name her Lorelei. Eighteen years later, Lorelei, now a woman, invites her school friends to spend their vacation at her villa. One of her guests, Julie, is insanely jealous of Lorelei. One day Gerald Waldron, a disenchanted society fop, sails by on his yacht, accompanied by his social-climbing friend, Hartley Royce. Seeing Lorelei and her friends swimming, they decide to go ashore. Both Gerald and Hartley fall in love with Lorelei, and Julie rages, finding herself relegated to Hartley. Together Hartley and Julie plot to separate the lovers.

Orphaned after the death of their mother, Nancy Grimm and her baby sister Ellen are taken to the country where Ellen is adopted by the wealthy Walsh family. Nancy keenly feels the loss of her sister, and when the judge rules that she cannot visit Ellen without permission, she throws herself onto a bench, winning the sympathy of young attorney Chester Noble. Nancy is then placed in the Wick's home where she is treated as a servant. Miserable, Nancy cuts off her hair and, dressed as a boy, runs away.

A poor shopgirl is offered a "good time" for a week by the son of her employer. She accepts, but the offer is misunderstood by her brother, who informs the girl's parents of her "fling."

Louis and August Siever, the twins sons of a German father and American mother, are traveling in Europe when war breaks out. August joins the Kaiser's army, but Louis, a supporter of the United States, is practically made a prisoner in Berlin for a year while he tries to prove his American citizenship. After a violent confrontation with Louis, August steals his brother's passport and leaves for New York with Gerda Anderson, a German spy.

Before he can avenge a crooked card game, Dan Carrington suffers heart failure and dies in his chair. John Tralee, the cheater, feels a pang of guilt when he discovers that he has taken all of Carrington's money and adopts the dead man's little girl, Lois. The girl grows up and the gambling hall becomes her second home.

Glory Quayle, a natural-born mimic, leaves her country home, reaches London, goes on the stage, gains fame and affluence. John Storm, her country sweetheart, believing he has lost Glory forever, enters a monastery, tries to forget her, cannot kill his love, returns to the world, becomes a famous slum worker and friend of the poor.

Howard Peyton served two years for forgery. Jerry Grafton, a genteel crook, is on the lookout for him when Howard comes out of prison. He is met at the jail door by his young wife. Jerry also meets him and offers him help, but urged on by his wife, Howard refuses it. When they reach home, his wife, who has a little money, induces him to go to New York and start life anew, and send, for her when he has a position. In New York, he manages to obtain a position in the office of Arthur Jamieson, an importer. Howard sends for his wife to join him. While he is waiting, Grafton finds him and insists that he forge his employer's name, or he will expose his past offense. Naturally weak, Howard yields.

Robert "Bob" Wesley horrifies his father, Admiral John Wesley of the Naval Advisory Board, by failing his examination at the Annapolis naval academy. Bob seizes the chance to redeem himself, however, when he overhears Hanson, the butler, plotting with German agent Count Von Ornstorff to deliver his father's plans for the Atlantic coastal defenses to German Baroness Von Hulda. In Baltimore, Bob meets the baroness' ship and, with the aid of an old college professor, makes her his prisoner. Having impersonated a woman in the college play, Bob disguises himself as the baroness, rendezvous with the spies, and obtains the plans.

Dick Evans is the corrupt boss of a rough-and-tumble munitions town called Powderville. He hires his friend, Jack Ripley, to establish a newspaper, intending merely to further his own financial ambitions; however, Jack envisions The Trumpet as an instrument of good and soon persuades Dick to clean up Powderville.

Lois Fox, upon whose shoulder is branded a Chinese idiograph resembling the letters "A. Y.," is rescued from a gang of Chinese ruffians by Brice Ferris. His servant Ming, in attempting to steal from her finger a ring that bears a mysterious green seal, is killed, and soon afterward a stranger named Strang arrives, also in search of the girl. Despite Brice's efforts to protect her, Lois is abducted and taken to the headquarters of Lao Wing, the leader of a secret Chinese society known as the Tong.

Jim Crosby, the product of a broken home, becomes a gangster and goes to prison. Meanwhile, Ann Payton, an heiress, converts a saloon into a mission. She is engaged to her father's secretary, Temple Vaughn, a gambler. Jim is released from prison and seeks shelter at the mission. Temple becomes indebted to gambler Phil Johnson and is forced to arrange a crooked poker game involving some of his wealthy friends. Jim overhears the plot and, realizing that Temple is Ann's fiancé, robs the poker game and puts a check Temple forged into Temple's own pocket.

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.

Although Kenneth Carmont and Esther Saunders, criminal Bert Saunders' sister, love each other, Esther marries detective Elwood Collins, who agrees to stop pursuing Bert if she accepts his proposal. One night, Kenneth and Esther hide Bert, who has escaped from the police. The same night, Kenneth's father is murdered. The evidence implicates Kenneth, who cannot supply his whereabouts at the time of the crime, as that would give away Bert. Esther cannot clear Kenneth for the same reason, and because it would let her husband know that she was with her former sweetheart.

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.