When elderly Joseph Moreau and his young wife Therese offer refuge to starving young dramatist Paul Savary, gossips begin to spread rumors of a love affair between the wife and the writer. For the good of all concerned, Paul moves into separate quarters. One day Paul overhears the gossip again at a café and challenges the purveyor of the lie to a duel. Moreau, for his own satisfaction, takes Paul's place in combat and is mortally wounded. Moreau staggers to Paul's apartment where he discovers Therese, who has come to beg the writer to refuse to fight.
Cyril Hamilton is a chicken-hearted easterner who heads west. He makes up for his past misdeeds by rescuing a Cavalry colonel's daughter Marcia West from Mexican bandidos.
A manicurist gives up the honest love of a barberr to become the mistress of a wealthy broker. But she comes to hate the man who has caused her downfall, and her loathing peaks during a dinner party he is holding. Other guests include three other men and their mistresses. Each young lady gets a $100 bill as a party favor, tucked away in one of the meal's several courses. The broker proudly brags about how each bill was obtained by giving the screws to the lower classes.
Wealthy clubman Richard Dorian is a lighthearted soul who can't seem to take anything seriously, including his wife. Even when they decide to divorce, he meets the lawyers with a smile. When one of the attorneys suggests a charge of brutality, Mrs. Dorian points out that it is ludicrous. Dorian offers to have a party on his yacht, during which he will try very hard to be brutal to her to give her grounds for the divorce. Among the partygoers are Mrs. Dorian's guardian and Morgan, a smuggler who is buying the yacht. The guardian, who has squandered Mrs. Dorian's money on the stock market, kills himself. Dorian thinks that his wife killed him, gallantly takes the blame himself, and dives overboard. He becomes a tramp and is shanghaied by Morgan's men to become a stoker on his former yacht. Dorian's steward, Puck, is still onboard, and he tells Dorian that the guardian committed suicide.
