This short follows the early career of actress Jane Barnes. She starts by doing extra work. After several months she is offered a studio contract (the "first step").
A retired Scotland Yard detective, Patrick Fitzpatrick (Tom Walls) comes back to take one final case, tracking down a missing vase which has been stolen by a gang of thieves specialising in taking art treasures.
In London, August 1914, Austrian star Elsa Duranyi (Gertrude Michael) and English matinee idol Alan Barclay (Herbert Marshall) are in love and plan an immediate marriage.
Carrie Snyder is a prostitute, who is forced out of the fictional southern town of Crebillon, after forming a friendship with a young boy named Paul, whose dying mother is unable to protest against her son visiting such a woman.
Film portrays the expedition of the British explorer David Livingstone to Africa to discover the source of the Nile, his disappearance, and the expedition to find him led by Stanley.