Bedford Mills, wounded in France, meets aristocratic Helen Jessop at a party given by her father for returning war heroes in his Fifth Avenue home. Bedford falls violently in love with Helen, but discovering that he is only a poor bank clerk she insists that he must first become a man of importance. He decides that, in view of the soaring prices of shoes, he will refuse to wear shoes on the street. Causing a sensation, he is arrested and then released, but all New York reads of his exploits. Although scorned by Miss Jessop, he is accompanied on his barefoot strolls by Mary Turner, a neighboring artist who believes in his campaign and loves him despite the fact that her father is president of the Shoe Trust.