Two school classmates pursue different paths: Betty teaches music, while Nina marries a lawyer, Ed Barnes. Tiring of domestic life, however, Nina seeks a career on the stage. Meanwhile, Paget, a wealthy and unscrupulous man, seeks to compromise Betty, and later, when she marries David Locke, she discovers that her husband's income depends on royalties from an invention that Paget controls. Paget again forces himself on Betty, after which he reduces the royalty, and Betty secretly gets a position as a singer. Paget and David come to blows and David's new invention is destroyed, but he makes a new start at another job. Seeking to reconcile Nina with her husband, Betty innocently provokes David's jealousy; however, Ed, overjoyed at the reunion with his wife, tells David that he owes his marital success to Betty's efforts.