After being educated in England, Daisy Forbes returns to China, the country of her birth, and discovers that her father has recently died and that she has become a social outcast, owing to the public revelation that the oriental nurse who raised her was actually her mother.
American sculptress Adele La Rue, working in Paris, lacks the inspiration to create a masterpiece, until Jean Ballard, a wild apache leader, takes refuge from the police in her apartment.
Jane Brower wants nothing more than to leave behind her ranch life in the West and go East. When she happens upon a party in the private railroad car of wealthy August Van Dorn, Jane gets the idea to finance her trip by kidnapping his son, Donald, for ransom.
A young British nobleman, impoverished and desperate, clings to the hope that either a prizefighter or a racehorse in which he holds interests can save his fortunes.