Katherine Manners discovers that her three daughters are running wild: Betty and Madelyne are having love affairs with unworthy men, and Gwen, a studious girl with an independent mind, is planning to marry Grantland Dobbs as soon as he obtains a divorce. All the girls have money of their own, and Mrs. Manners is forced to extreme measures to bring them back to their senses. She goes abroad and returns with a husband much younger than herself; she takes a swell apartment and begins to lead a wild life, giving herself up to drunkenness and reckless pleasures. Madelyne finally berates her mother for her unbecoming behavior, and Mrs. Manners then reveals that her drunkenness and frivolity have been feigned in order to show the three girls the errors of their ways. Mrs. Manners then introduces her "husband" as the girls' British cousin, and the girls return to normal ways and pleasures.