When Geraldine "Jerry" Mannerly, a successful, attractive sportswoman, is thrown by an overly rambunctious horse at a New York country club, surgeon Mike Talbot admininsters to her, then overcome by her attractiveness, kisses her. After Mike casually confesses his transgression to his trusting wife Anne, he lunches with Jerry the next day and begins to see her regularly. Anne, who has caught the eye of Stanley Ashton, a friend of Mike's father Jim, dismisses rumors about Mike and Jerry and even invites Jerry to a costume party. Determined to "steal" Mike from Anne, Jerry tells him at the party that she is leaving immediately for California and consequently coaxes a confession of love out of him. Jerry then declares that, in order to spare Anne's feelings, she is willing to sacrifice her own love, which drives Mike to ask Anne for a divorce. Although devastated, Anne agrees to the divorce without a fight and leaves for Reno. When she returns to New York, she is greeted by the ever-faithful Stanley and by Jim, who upbraids her for giving up on Mike too easily. Soon after, Anne attends Mike and Jerry's wedding and, with a breaking heart, blesses their marriage. While the new Mrs. Talbot transforms Mike's home into a formal showroom and antagonizes the easy-going Jim with her snobbishness, Anne is wooed by Stanley, who proposes to her every day. Weary of Jim's disdain, Jerry coldly forces him to move to Utah, where he has invested in a gold mine. In Utah, Jim is shot in a gun accident, and Mike and Anne are summoned to his deathbed. Brought together temporarily by Jim's death, Mike finally tells Anne at Christmas that he wants to re-marry her, but when he asks Jerry for a divorce, she denies him his freedom. Although Anne offers to become his mistress, Mike insists that they separate. Eventually, Anne, using her own set of tricks, fools Jerry into believing that she will impoverish Mike with alimony demands and, thus revealing Jerry as a gold digger, drives the false wife from her husband.