Templar Powell

A rich girl's fiancé poses as a chauffeur to stop her eloping with a major.

Wealthy French lawyer Louis Martinot must travel away on business. He entrusts his friend, Paul Blythe, with a delicate task: to investigate the background of a young woman named Susanne Bergomat. If Paul deems her family suitable, he is authorized to propose marriage to her on Louis’s behalf. However, upon meeting Susanne, Paul immediately falls in love with her himself. To secure her for his own, Paul concocts a lie, telling Louis that Susanne's family is unsuitable because her mother is insane. Paul then proposes to Susanne directly and is accepted. The "villainous" deception eventually unravels, leading to a series of comedic complications as the truth about Paul's lies comes to light.

The Duke of Chartres is in love with Princess Henriette, but she seemingly wants nothing to do with him. Eventually he grows tired of her insults and flees to England when Louis XV insists that the two marry. He goes undercover as Monsieur Beaucaire, the barber of the French Ambassador, and finds that he enjoys the freedom of a commoner’s life. After catching the Duke of Winterset cheating at cards, he forces him to introduce him as a nobleman to Lady Mary, with whom he has become infatuated. When Lady Mary is led to believe that the Duke of Chartres is merely a barber she loses interest in him. She eventually learns that he is a nobleman after all and tries to win him back, but the Duke of Chartres opts to return to France and Princess Henriette who now returns his affection.

Follows three generations of the Mayne family through the year 1921-22. The 81-year-old patriarch reminisces about his rough beginnings in post-Civil War railroading, son Rufus rides rough waters as a wealthy financier, and his wife and three daughters muddle through their New York high society life.

In Canada, a young woman of Indian blood marries an Englishman who sends her back to England to humiliate his family and the woman who once spurned him. But the man's brother shows her the ways of English civilization, and a great surprise awaits her husband when he returns to his homeland.