When her drunken father dies from falling downstairs on the night of her engagement announcement, Helen Winthrop finds a note from him warning that drinking has ruined the family's past four generations. She breaks her engagement to lawyer Robert Craig so that she can test herself as she fears that her children might inherit the habit. After sacrificing her reputation to save that of her adulterous married friend Stella Scarr, Helen goes to a resort hotel where she wins a tennis tournament and flirts with Percy Farwell, the son of social climber Mrs. Honorah Farwell. In order to break up her son's romance with a supposedly disgraced woman, Mrs. Farwell hires Robert Craig.

Pauline Frederick
as Helen Winthrop

Milton Sills
as Robert Craig

Lydia Yeamans Titus
as Mrs. Honorah Farwell

Walter Hiers
as Percy Farwell

Emmett King
as Harrison Winthrop

Harry Northrup
as Sidney Scarr

Peaches Jackson
as Child (uncredited)

Ernest Pasque
as Bruce Terhune

Beverly Travers
as Stella Scarr