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An extended family split up in France and Germany find themselves on opposing sides of the battlefield during World War I.

A city writer hires a restaurant drudge, a woman who had left her desert tedium several decades before, to help out his wife who has wanted to continue her singing. An attempted killing and a dramatic family revelation await in the works.

A group of confirmed bachelors find their informal "anti-matrimony club" turned into a home for adopted orphans when six orphaned children are suddenly foisted on them.

A young woman borrows money from her boss for her wedding dress. After the marriage he asks to be repaid, and she--not liking to ask her husband for money--writes a check on her husband's account. When he discovers that his wife has written a check to another man and not told him, complications ensue.

Just prior to World War I, the Kaiser sends Baron von Zeller to inform Emperor Franz Josef of Austria that he is ready to declare war on France. Sensing the impending crisis, the French War Office dispatches secret agent René de Bornay to investigate the situation, and upon his arrival, he cultivates the friendship of Franz Josef's mistress, the Countess Griselda von Arenburg. Austria's Archduke Franz Ferdinand, distressed with the countess' influence over the Emperor, resolves to get rid of her, but she learns of his plans and commissions her Serbian servant Danilo to murder him. Baron von Zeller, who loves the countess, covers up her part in the assassination and asks her to come to Berlin to serve the Kaiser as an agent. In Berlin, she again meets René, and although she has been assigned to expose him, the countess falls in love with the Frenchman and urges him to escape to France. Just as René leaves her apartment, von Zeller enters, and having learned that she hid René from the Germans, has her shot on the spot.

Nancy Scroggs, the daughter of the owner of a once-famous but now-struggling hotel, hatches a plan to draw in new customers. She picks up Peter Alstyne, a young man following his doctor's orders of a strict diet and a relaxing vacation, at the train station and convinces him--using the philosophy of Christian Science--to disregard his doctor's orders and stay at their hotel and eat all he wants. Soon he and Nancy fall in love and the hotel begins to pick up business again. But soon Peter receives a letter that changes everything for both him and Nancy.

An orphan girl named Mary Ann falls for a poverty-stricken composer named John Lonsdale.

Young clubman Bob Gilmore is called by telephone to his home, where his parents are giving him a birthday party. He overhears one of the male guests make a slurring remark about his mother's appearance, and punishes him right there, throwing the entire gathering into an uproar. Later in the evening he assumes guilt for a check which had actually forged by his foster father, in order to save the mother's feelings, but obtains a written confession from the guilty man for future use if necessary. Learning that he had been adopted from a foundling asylum in infancy, Bob decides to go to New York to see if he cannot learn his real name, which he understands begins with "Mor." He disguises himself and enters many homes, attired in evening clothes, and is soon known to the police as "The Midnight Man." In the meantime he has come into contact with members of the White Circle gang, and has many close physical encounters with them.

Jack Standish feels responsible for the failure of the partnership with his father and goes to the South Seas where he falls prey to alcohol, is seduced by Lullaby Lou, a vamp, and tricked by a brutal plantation owner, Gordon Van Brock. Mary Rogers, Standish's fiancee, finds him in Java, however, she is faced with the challenge of reviving him, both mentally and physically. Her task becomes more difficult when Lullaby Lou, and Van Brock, try to interfere with the couple. Mary and Jack are finally able to escape when a tropical storm hits and spawns a typhoon that destroys the coastal settlement.

Rose Donnay flees from a life of abuse from her drunken, brutal husband Tim. Accompanying her is Jack Hilton, who--unknown to Rose--shoots Tim after stealing his money. They venture to Nome where Hilton opens a dance hall in which Rose functions as the main attraction. Soon Rose discovers Hilton's infidelity and leaves him. Meanwhile, Anatole Norss falls in love with the disillusioned Rose. When Bill Carnon, a member of the Canadian mounted police, appears on the trail of Donnay's killer, terror-stricken Hilton rushes to Rose's cabin, shoots the Mountie, and forces Rose to accompany him by kidnapping the child whom she had adopted. Anatole follows with his faithful sled-dog Patches, overtakes Hilton, and kills him, thus freeing Rose to marry her rescuer.

Hajj, a rascally beggar on the periphery of the court of Baghdad, schemes to marry his daughter to royalty and to win the heart of the queen of the castle himself.

Bunty Biggar, sister of Rab and Jeemy and daughter of Tammas, a stern church elder in a small Scottish village, subtly controls all three through diplomatic tactics. Jeemy confesses to having robbed a bank and begs his father to replace the money, which he does with money left with him for safekeeping by Susie Simpson, a spinster interested in Tammas. Susie, who overhears a telephone conversation between Tammas and Eelen, a friend from Tammas' past, hears about the misuse of her money and demands it back; when it is not returned, she disgraces him in church. Bunty intercedes and returns the money by borrowing an equal sum from Weelum, whom she later marries in a double wedding--the other couple: Tammas and Eelen.

Jane Goring, a ruthlessly ambitious actress, forsakes her life as a wife and mother for the stage. Returning home from a performance one night, Jane is disgusted to find her husband Robert McNaughton victimized by a tubercular cough and so banishes him and her young daughter to a sanitarium in Colorado. Years pass, finding Jane still estranged from her family. On the opening night of her new play, Jane finds herself upstaged and outperformed by Gloria Cromwell, a rising young actress, who, unknown to Jane, is her abandoned daughter. Returning home, Jane is haunted by visions of her husband and child and begins to sob. Looking up from her pillow, she is startled to see her husband with Gloria. Discovering that the girl is actually her daughter, Jane realizes the error of her ways, and the family is reconciled.

Christine, known as Tiny, whose mother eloped with a circus clown and became a parachutist, spends most of her time with her lame dog and an elephant. When the circus passes through her home town, Tiny's mother is rejected by her sister Sylvia, thought to be an old maid because of her all-consuming interest in mathematics. Seeing her mother depressed, Tiny convinces her father to join her for her nightly stunt of parachuting from a balloon. While Tiny plays with a precocious black child, her parents' chute fails to open and they die. Thinking herself friendless, Tiny attempts to drown herself, but her dog brings Sylvia and Frank Dodge, who loves her. Sylvia lets her other suitor, Professor Caldwell, who wants her fortune, direct Tiny's upbringing "scientifically," but after Tiny and Frank expose the professor's plot to destroy Sylvia's book on the fourth dimension, because it is better than his own book, Sylvia, who now loves Tiny, accepts Frank's proposal.

Thrifty orphan Norah MacPherson meets wealthy young James Patterson, who gets her a job as a chorus girl. They fall in love. To put up a good front, she spends all her money on clothes. Patterson doubts her when he sees her wearing a string of fake pearls; he then finds that she hasn't been unfaithful, and they reconcile.