Wastrel New York millionaire Roland Van Dam travels to New Orleans during Mardi Gras, looking for adventure and romance. Because the costume he is wearing includes a red gardenia, he is mistaken for escaped prisoner Emile Le Duc by a woman (who turns out to be a long-lost cousin) who was to meet Le Duc, who was to be wearing a red gardenia. It turns out that Le Duc is the head of a vicious gang of counterfeiters, and Roland winds up getting in more adventures than he had hoped for.

Laura Bruce is married to John Bruce, police commissioner. She discovers her husband is enjoying a drunken revel with another woman, and vows she will obtain a divorce. After doing so she weds Paul Ramsey. His employer, Dick Turner, a libertine, offers his a responsible position in the west, and she faces a long separation. Ramsey later learns that Turner is interested in his wife and engages a man to protect her, who happens to be her former husband.

Helen Steele, who has theatrical aspirations, has been told by Sidney Parker that, owing to her lack of stage experience he cannot entertain her proposition of giving her the leading part in his new production, "The Siren." Believing that she can get Parker to consent if she is persuasive enough, Helen has her fiancé, Henry Tracey, invite the theatrical manager to the party to be given by John W. Cannell so that she may work upon him. At the affair Helen manages to obtain Parker's consent to give her a trial it she is successful in having Jack Craigen, a friend of Cannell, who has been living in Patagonia for a long time and who is a woman hater, propose to her.

Jim Ogden, secretly engaged to Madge Hemmingway, wealthy heiress, becomes sensitive over his lack of money and breaks the engagement. In a moment of pique she marries Count Van Tuyle. After six months she returns from Europe, minus her husband. Trying to forget her error, she goes to the country.

Margaret Sherwood's fiancé has disappeared in the Arctic and she hasn't heard from him in two years. Yet she does not believe he died. Price Latham, in love with Margaret, offers to organize a new expedition to prove otherwise. In return, she promises to marry Latham, come what may.

Tom Brown shows up at Harvard, confident and a bit arrogant. He becomes a rival of Bob McAndrew, not only in football and rowing crew, but also for the affections of Mary Abbott, a professor's daughter.

Having followed the road of romance through many countries, Lord Quex finally falls in love with Muriel Eden. After resisting Lord Quex because of his reputation, Muriel finally capitulates to his charms and agrees to marry him. In her heart, however, Muriel still treasures an affection for Caption Bastling, a fortune hunting womanizer, and when Muriel is told of Lord Quex's continuing contact with the Duchess of Dowager, a situation brought about through the scheming of the Duchess, Muriel turns to Bastling and agrees to meet him at her friend Sophie Fullgarney's manicurist shop.

Gilbert and Lawrence Carthage are in love with Peggy Lorraine. George Duncan, a wealthy and unscrupulous bachelor, insults Peggy in Gilbert's presence. Being timid and retiring, he does nothing.

Sir Joseph and Lady Webbing are the foster parents of Marie-Louise. The couple are also in league with Verrinder, a German spy. When their work against England is discovered, they commit suicide. Marie-Louise, who has been an unwitting part of their schemes, is allowed to go to the U.S. if she promises to keep everything a secret.

Peep O'Day, an orphan in a small Kentucky town, falls heir to a small fortune and begins to make up for all the lost pleasure of childhood, but Sublette, a crooked attorney, arranges for an eastern belle to show up as Peep's "niece" to steal his fortune.