Newly elected police court judge John Fairbrother is impassioned when it comes to the laws affecting the dives and cabarets of the city, and promises equal justice for all.

An artist is in the countryside, painting, when he meets a girl in a roadster. They fall in love, but the girl marries a lawyer for his money. She should have waited -- the artist becomes a huge success, commanding a thousand dollars for a portrait sitting. The girl convinces her husband to let the artist paint her, but one night while she is visiting his studio, a thieving relative of his enters and is killed by a servant. To protect the girl, the artist allows himself to be accused of the murder. Her husband happens to be the prosecuting attorney, and when she reveals she was at the artist's home the night of the murder, he prepares to shoot the artist himself. But before he can raise his gun, the servant stabs him to death.

Bob, John, and Edward--three young boys growing up in the same neighborhood--have vastly-different experiences with sex. Bob's father patiently explains "the birds and the bees" to him, and even takes him to a hospital to see the effects of venereal disease.

A priest hears a murderer's confession but can't reveal the truth, even though his brother is being tried for the crime.

Marion Clark, a manicurist, is unimpressed by the wealthy but dissipated men who frequent her shop, preferring city editor Dick Strong, who lives in her boardinghouse. Dick's sister Gladys, however, is intrigued by the wilder side of life in New York and allows one of the boarders to take her to a lively party.

Sensible Betty Manners is the wife of the frivolous John Manners. John fritters away his time playing the horses rather than paying attention to his job on Wall Street. He pays dearly for this when the market goes wrong, and he is wiped out. Coincidentally an old friend, Sir Harry, arrives bringing the news of a vast fortune left Betty and she is now Lady Betty. Betty keeps the news a secret from John, who has taken up with a Mrs. Airlie. But as John comes to believe Betty has become involved with Sir Harry, his jealousy is awoken, and he acts rashly until explanations all around straighten everything out.

Princess Marya and her brother, the Grand Duke Paul of Russia, are studying in the U.S. when word reaches them that Rasputin is to be killed. Paul is seized by Russian secret service men, but through Marya's appeal to Captain Rodney Willard, he is released. In Russia, Marya participates actively in the Revolution, while Willard, with whom she has fallen in love, joins the Allied Commission. Deeply troubled by the influence of German agents in Russia, Marya organizes the Legion of Death, a fighting unit of peasant women, and leads them into battle against the Germans. The legion suffers defeat and Marya is captured, but in the end, she wins her freedom.

When Sadie, a waitress in a Kansas City railroad station, discovers that her lover Jim Lacy is married and has a child, she transfers to the small desert town of Bagdad, determined to hate all men, but the open spaces and friendliness of the people work to soften her attitude. She falls in love with Billy Thompson, the restaurant's manager, after they rescue an Indian girl from her furious lover.