Georgiana Chadbourne is a young widow. Her dead husband was such a straight arrow that it bored her, and after a proper enough mourning period, she goes out in search of adventure. She gets in trouble for picking flowers in Central Park, but is rescued by Jack Garrison, who she mistakes for an artistic, bohemian type of character.

Believing her husband to have died on an allied mission to Russia, wealthy Englishwoman Rosalind Dane devotes her life to her three-year-old daughter Patty. When a gypsy band arrives, Rosalind is strangely attracted to them and permits them to camp on her estate. She falls in love with one of them, Ben Galli, and throws a lawn fete, during which Rowena, a fortune-teller, predicts that there will be a tragic death in her family and that she will leave with the gypsies.

In the hills of Kentucky, Alexander McGivens, known as "the girl in pants," is reared by her father as if she were a boy. When her father, Aaron, is wounded in a fight with Bud Sellers, the girl undertakes to get her father's logs to market with the help of a crew from the lumber camp. Her numerous suitors include a young Irishman, Jerry O'Keefe, roughneck Jase Mallows, and a wealthy young easterner, Jack Halloway. After delivering the logs, she entrusts her money to the repentant Bud Sellers, and on her return trip she is captured by Mallows and his followers. She finally reaches home, where she offers her hand to O'Keefe, the soft-spoken mountaineer.

Shirley Kaye is the vivacious daughter of Egerton Kaye, president of the great Union Central Railroad. The latter holds his position through his descent from "Pirate" Kaye, who founded the line, rather than through any executive ability of his own. Shirley is queen of the most exclusive Long Island set, and as clever as she is lovely to look at. From the West comes T.J. Magen, a rough but lion-hearted financier, who buys the house next door to the Kayes. Magen cares little for society, and the elaborate household which their wealth forces them to support is a constant worry to his simple and unassuming wife. But the daughter, "Daisy," yearns, with all her heart to break into the society and swim where Shirley Kaye reigns supreme.

Fernande de Ferney, a young French girl, has spent her time between the convent and the country home of her uncle, where she has learned to passionately love Roger, the son of the Marquise de Monclars. He marries her for her fortune, but does not value what he has so lightly won until she profits by the lesson taught in the little marionette play written by their friend, Nizerolles, and finds that men are much like marionettes.

Margaret Case seeks to live down the errors of the past, and in marriage finds happiness and security until her enemy again crosses her path and she realizes that life is like a house of glass where there is neither security nor seclusion.