James Sheridan becomes wealthy and a power in a middle west city, where his entire life is absorbed in the turmoil of his own creation. The only thing he lacks is social standing, and this he strives to gain by methods he has successfully employed in driving a business deal. His two oldest sons, Jim and Roscoe, are like him, products of the turmoil, but Bibbs, the youngest, is a weakling with a penchant for books. The father insists on Bibbs working in the factory, but as it is distasteful to him, and he is physically unfit for the task, his health tails and he is sent to a sanitarium. In the same city lives the Vertrees family, poor, but true aristocrats. There is a young daughter, Mary Vertrees, and Sheridan determines that his son, Jim, shall marry her, and thus make a wedge for the family into social prominence. He arranges a big dinner, with a vulgar display of luxury, which Mary Vertrees is obliged to attend because of a financial obligation Sheridan holds over her father.