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.
La tempesta in un cranio (Tempest in a Cranium) is an anarchic, quasi-surreal Italian comedy of multiple delights in which the timorous scion of a wealthy family is gaslit by his friends in order to prove that his fears of hereditary insanity are hogwash.
William Fielding, a young widower, is living in Shanghai with his little boy, David. A young Chinese woman looks after the child, and Foo Chang, a trader, lusts after her.
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.
Two men, Philip Whittemore (Henry B. Walthall) and Thorpe (Harry Northrup) both go to the Northwest to gain the right-of-way for their railroad company from D'Arcambal (Emmett King).