A virtuous lawyer falls for a beautiful but extravagant woman, leading him into financial trouble as he tries to keep up with her wasteful spending, ultimately testing their relationship and his principles.
In a small town in Virginia, Faith Corey, daughter of a socially prominent family, meets and falls in love with Jerry Malone, a prizefighter, though her straitlaced mother wants her to marry Siegfried, a spellbinding "missionary reformer." Though Grandma Corey promotes the romance with the prizefighter, Mike, the fighter's hardboiled, wisecracking manager, tries to keep them apart; following a quarrel, Faith reconciles herself to marrying Siegfried, but when he invites a group of "weak sisters" to a revival meeting, he is disgraced when one accuses him of her downfall. Finally, with Mike's advice, Jerry wins back Faith and they are united with the family's blessings.
An American ship is wrecked off the coast of the Dutch East Indies, and little Faith Fitzhugh and her mother have washed ashore on a rocky island that supports only a lighthouse. Faith's mother lives only long enough to inform the three Dutch lighthouse keepers that her daughter is the heiress to a large fortune. Years pass and Faith grows to womanhood. Jacob Kroon and his son, Piet, then conspire to marry Faith to Piet's idiot son, Hans, in order to bring her fortune into the family. Dick Wayne, a sailor on an American cruiser that is repairing a damaged cable in the waters of the lighthouse, learns of Faith's captivity and comes to her rescue. Piet kills Jacob in a fit of jealousy, and Dick then kills Piet in a fight. Hans sets the lighthouse on fire and incinerates himself. Dick and Faith make it back to the cruiser.
Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.