Steel mill owner Sarah Maitland has raised her two children, Blair and Nannie, to be honest and caring, however Blair disappoints her when he seduces the wife of his best friend and breaks up her marriage.
Marianna Miller, who together with her sister Sarah pounds the pavements, looking for a job. After a period of starvation and deprivation Marianna is hired as secretary to duplicitous businessman Philip Hancock.
Engrossed in his business affairs, John Kirby fails to assess the seriousness of his wife Helen's objections to the constant parade of business chums and their mistresses who come to dinner.
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.
Francesca Brabaut, who married an artist against her father's advice, regrets her decision when her husband Antoine, in debt, sends her to his misanthropic uncle to plead for money.
Chorus girl Peggy Malone, supporting her father and brother, marries press agent Jimmy Parsons. They settle into a quiet life until her "shiftless" relatives move in, causing marital strain and financial pressure.
French Canadian trapper Victor Raoul returns to the trading post at St. Ignace to find a rival for the affections of Yvonne, his business partner's daughter, in the Marquis Courtière, Parisian representative of the fur company.
Bart Carson is in love with Lou and even goes to jail to save Walter A. Walker, a man she says is her brother but who is really a husband who has deserted his wife and two children.
When her father, an indigent artist, dies, Sylvia Lacey goes to live with her Aunt Martha and her uncle, Judge Trent, in New England, where she is unwanted and humiliated.
In 1840 Scotland, a young lass named Babbie revels in the country life and frolics with the locals, simple weavers whose livelihood is threatened by increasing industrialization.