Madge Evans, World Film Corp. juvenile star, is sent to her Quaker grandparents, Timothy and Tabitha Mendenhall, when her father and mother go to serve in World War I. After bidding farewell to the World stars, Madge goes to her grandparent's home where she experiences stern discipline.

Lt. Col. Anstruther vies for the attention of Muriel Mannering with Major Bingham. The latter tricks Anstruther into believing that the girl loves Bingham, when in reality she has refused the major's proposal of marriage. When Anstruther saves Bingham's life during the Boer war, the deceitful major finally tells the truth.

Richard Hall is a successful writer, while his wife, Alice, is interested in pursuing a career as a singer. She meets James Hamilton, a musical agent, who arranges an opera engagement with Rimini, an impresario. Hall quarrels with his wife over this, and they separate, with Hall taking their daughter Grace.

During a lawn party at his New York home, steel magnate Theodore Morton claims he is bankrupt as a deterrent to Lord Dormer and the Duke of Medonia, two fortune hunters competing for his niece, Betty. After the suitors depart, unscrupulous Carl Gates is informed by his fiancée, banker's secretary Adele Shelby, that Theodore was lying. Carl pursues Betty, who accepts his proposal with the belief that the marriage will benefit her uncle. During a yachting expedition with Carl, Betty falls overboard and is rescued by architect Tom Waring, who is competing in a race. Tom wins with Betty on board, and a romance develops.

Refusing to marry her stepmother's choice, Gail Prim leaves her life of luxury, after cutting her hair, dressing in her butler's clothes and stealing money and jewels from her father's safe. Spending the night in a barn, she introduces herself to the thieves already there as the Oskaloosa Kid, a wanted criminal, and barely escapes their struggle to get her loot. Meanwhile, the real Oskaloosa Kid kills Reginald Paynter and throws Nettie Penning, whom Reginald was trying to seduce, onto the highway.

Charles Trevor is a young chap just out of college, who is put to work on a daily newspaper and at once starts to lead a life of adventure and romance. A German spy and a maiden in distress cross his path the first day and, before the end of the story, he has landed a big scoop for his paper, put the German in jail and married the girl.

The son of an American mine owner, traveling under the name of Charles Conant, tries to enter England in 1916 after masquerading as a muleteer, but the captain of his ship, suspicious when he sees Charles look through a spyglass, plans to take him back to the United States. Charles escapes and visits his relative, Lady Dartridge, where he falls in love with her daughter, Lady Joan Templar, who is loved by her cousin, the chief constable, George Templar. Templar, suspicious of Charles' manner and unexplainable meetings and activities, wants to arrest him as a spy.

Tom Whitney, well connected but a social derelict because of his weakness for drink, is released from the draft because of an old football Injury, but a policeman persuades him that he can still do his bit in the shipyards. He takes a job in the yard owned by the man to whose daughter he was engaged in happier times. Three German propagandists seek to foment a strike to delay the work, and largely through Tom's efforts the plan goes amiss and the strike is called off. Rehabilitated by work, the launching of The Liberty is a forecast of his own rebirth.

A clairvoyant warns divorcée Adrienne Van Couver to beware of Robert Warren, whom she has spurned. The warning comes true after Adrienne's ex-husband, John Dean, meets Warren, an old friend, and tells him the story of his marriage to Adrienne. He tells how her frivolity and malice caused both the death of their only child, and after their divorce John’s romance with Lorraine Barkley who left him for lawyer Henry Armstrong. Enraged by Adrienne's treachery, Warren goes to her apartment and kills her. Dean arrives after Warren has fled and is arrested for the murder. Believing that Dean is innocent, Lorraine persuades Armstrong to defend him. After a last-minute confession by John is cleared.

A captain saves a kidnapped magnate from a nursing home run by foreign agents.