After Bruce Morrison marries Rose Kendall, he receives information that his father is gravely ill, and not to tell him of Bruce's marriage because the father has picked Jane Penfield to be his son's wife. Jane's brother Murray, however, learns of the marriage and demands money to keep the news from Bruce's father.

Carver Endicott, a young sophisticate, is rejected by his fiancée for being too foppish and dull. When she feigns an interest in his father, Carver attempts to disgrace his family name by working as a farmhand and later as a busboy in a hotel. However, the newspapers only praise him for his self-sacrificing principles; and finding that he cannot bring shame to the family through menial labor, he takes up with a notorious actress. But when this maneuver also fails, he returns to his former fiancée, who has no further complaint about his being an inexperienced dullard.