Elsa Carlyle is impulsive and a gambler. Though loved by her husband Jeff, she's spoiled and selfish, concerned with social standing. Meanwhile, Jeff wants to stop spending while he completes business deals that could make them rich. One night, on a hunch, she bets and loses big at a casino, and then she doubles her problems with more impulsive decisions. Hardy Livingstone, a wealthy Casanova just back from the Orient, makes a play for her. Elsa dallies with Hardy, but soon, his insistence and her dire financial affairs seem destined to lead to adultery. Who's the cheat?
Acting on her love of nature and loathing of titled fortune hunters, heiress Mary Hamilton leaves home with her secretary, Peggy Ingledew, to join a band of roving gypsies. One of Mary's suitors, Sir Kenneth Graham, follows the two young women into the woods, dressed in gypsy garb, but when Jack Hutton decides to rid his forested land of gypsies, Sir Kenneth is thrown into jail.
Sylvia, a model in the shop of a fashionable dressmaker, is introduced to the Hicks family, which recently has acquired a fortune through iron ore deposits discovered on their farm. Octavia Hicks sees in the cultured but unpretentious Sylvia a good match for her son Henry and invites the young woman to visit the Hicks home. Two other visitors, Frank Hayward and his accomplice Annie, are masquerading as a count and a princess in order to con the country-born millionaires out of their money. The two are introduced to Sylvia, who soon discovers their plots and exposes them. A mysterious foreign gentleman appears and announces that the fashion model is actually the Princess Sylvia of Karalyn, but she renounces her title to marry Henry.
Based on an international scandal that hit prewar France, when the editor of the Paris daily LE FIGARO, Gaston Calmette was shot to death by Madame Caillaux, wife of the Minister of Finance for his exposè of her husband's traitorous activities on behalf of Germany.
Theda Bara plays a Javanese priestess who elopes with an English military officer (Hugh Thompson). Bara's Bavahari becomes a celebrated dancer but is murdered onstage by a vengeful Buddhist priest (Victor Kennard).
A reception in their small village in celebration of the Count’s daughter Ann’s engagement to Baron Moreno is disrupted by the news that a mine in which the whole village has invested is worthless. Having persuaded the townspeople to invest their savings in the venture, the Count commits suicide, and the baron jilts the now-destitute Ann. Bereft Ann marries American promoter Slater, moving to the United States in hopes of earning enough to pay off her father's debts and the couple have a child. However, the baron follows Ann, raping her. Slater's jealous mother uses this opportunity to break up their marriage. Ordered from the house Ann has no option but to turn to the baron for sanctuary. Slater attempting a reconciliation for their child’s sake tracks her to the baron house where a fight occurs with both men being mortally wounded. Ann returns to her child; finds her mother-in-law repentant, and the three return to France to repay the debt.