Ted (Chester Morris), Jerry (Norma Shearer), Paul (Conrad Nagel) and Dorothy (Helen Johnson) are part of the New York in-crowd. Jerry's decision to marry Ted crushes Paul. He gets drunk and is involved in an accident that leaves Dorothy's face disfigured. Out of pity, Paul marries Dorothy. Ted and Jerry have been married three years when she discovers he had a brief affair with another woman — and when she confronts him on their third anniversary, he tells her it didn't "mean a thing." Upset, and with Ted out on a business trip, Jerry spends the night with his best friend, Don. Upon Ted's return she tells him she "balanced [their] accounts," withholding Don's name. Ted is hypocritically outraged and they argue, ending with Ted leaving her and the couple filing for a divorce. While Jerry turns to partying to forget her sorrows, Ted becomes an alcoholic. Paul and Jerry run into each other and she discovers he still loves her and is willing to leave Dorothy to be with her. It is only after she meets Dorothy that Jerry is forced to evaluate her decision.
Roy (James Hall) and Monte Rutledge (Ben Lyon) are very different British brothers. Strait-laced Roy loves and idealizes the apparently demure Helen (Jean Harlow). Monte, on the other hand, is a womanizer. Their German friend and fellow Oxford student Karl (John Darrow) is against the idea of having to fight England when World War I breaks out.
Four men, Bob Sangster, "Barbwire" Gibbons, "Wild Bill" Kearney, and José, rob the bank in the town of New Jerusalem. José and the cashier is killed, while Barbwire is shot in the shoulder. The three outlaws escape the posse, fleeing into the desert. However, their horses die and they have little water.
John Lamar buys a Jade Box in Asia but it is stolen by his friend Martin Morgan. A cult, searching for the box because it contains the secret to invisibility, catches up with and abducts Lamar. After discovering the theft, the cult send a message to Martin and the pair's children: John Lamar's son, Jack, who is engaged to Martin Morgan's daughter, Helen. Jack searches for the Box while Martin attempts to discover the secret of invisibility for his own schemes.
Nancy, the daughter of a native mistress named Dasima who was murdered several years earlier after leaving her family, returns to Batavia, Dutch East Indies (modern day Jakarta, Indonesia), as an adult. She discovers that her mother's murderers, a delman driver named Samiun and his wife Hayati, have returned from exile. In a dream, Nancy sees her mother, who asks that she hunt down Samiun and Hayati and take revenge upon them.
Billy Bear (Fairbanks) is a broker's clerk who has recently been fired because some information has been leaked to a rival broker. Billy goes to work with the rival broker, offering him valuable information about his former employer. Fairbanks falls in love with his employer's daughter, Edna (Mathews), a wealthy socialite. Billy abandons his old girlfriend, Poppy (Revier), who is a showgirl.