- The daughter of rich socialites meets a French woman at a party. The woman reveals that the girl is adopted and that her birth mother was a murderer. Ashamed, the girl runs away from home and falls for the wrong man.
- Fast-talking reporter Garry Dane (Ray Walker) tries to bluff his way into an upscale evening gathering hosted by the Allisons, a wealthy New York City family. Madge Allison (Joan Marsh), the sole heir of Mr. Rodney Allison (Holmes Herbert) and Mrs. Madeleine Allison (Doris Lloyd), nods no to Thorne, the butler (Robert Adair), who tricks Garry to exit through a side door. The determined journalist tries to sweet talk his way past Ellen, the maid (Kathryn Sheldon), who slams the door shut in his face. While young structural engineer Dick Taylor (Hugh Marlowe) chitchats with his lifelong friend Madge, Mr. and Mrs. Allison converse with Dick's proud mother, Jane Taylor (Olive Tell), who implies the union of her high-born son and Madge would make a brilliant marriage. However, it is a case of unrequited love in which Dick is in love with Madge, but she is merely fond of him. Nevertheless, he proposes marriage one more time, and Madge rejects him once more because being reliable and level-headed is not enough for her. Madge wants to be swept off her feet by a romantic and colorful knight in shining armor, which Dick is certainly not.
Garry arrives at the paper newsroom, and the editor (Dick Elliott) prompts him to write up his assignment on the Allison reception. Co-worker Sally Patrick (Inez Courtney) is in love with Garry, so she hands over a guest list of the Allison reception to help him get started. Dick, one of the last guests to leave the party, gives Madge a gentleman's handshake after she proposes golfing together tomorrow. Then, ex-convict Yvette Duval (Ann Codee) enters the picture and with a French accent introduces herself to the butler. Mr. and Mrs. Allison do not recognize the name Madam Duval at first but seem alarmed when Thorne mentions she is from Saint-Lazare, a prison located in Paris, France. Yvette explains to Madge that she shared the same cell with Madge's birth mother, who died last year while serving a life sentence for complicity with her lover in killing her husband. In addition, Mrs. Allison is actually her maternal aunt. After a dismayed and tearful Madge vacates the room, Yvette attempts to blackmail her adoptive parents but rejects a check from Mr. Allison and insists on hush money by cash, to be settled in his office the following morning.
A disturbed Madge sobs in her room and has a conversation in the forenoon with her adoptive mother. Mrs. Allison deftly advises not telling suitor Dick about the family secret, but Madge rejects the idea based on moral principles. However, now knowing her sordid history alters how Madge treats Dick, as she aims to avoid him. When Dick shows up to go golfing, she dodges his invitation for golf, tennis and yachting. Dick asks for perhaps a rain check before setting off with another handshake. A few weeks pass by, and Madge's parents discuss among themselves their concern over her abrupt change in lifestyle. While they decide not to interfere with her new life choices, Madge and the smooth-talking Garry get acquainted at one of his downscale parties as Sally jealously watches her co-worker move in fast on the unsettled young lady. The next day, Madge and the writer spend all day together, driving around, eating in her convertible, dining at a Chinese restaurant, discussing his vast travels as a former war correspondent, and enjoying themselves in a park.
Dick visits Madge after she returns home from her long date and asks her out to an evening concert, but Madge politely declines, giving the excuse that she is too worn out from spending the entire day shopping. Though Dick knows she is brushing him aside, he does not mention that he had seen her warming up to the reporter on a park bench. Dick suggests perhaps some other time before departing, without a handshake. Thus, Mrs. Allison subtly suggests to her daughter not to write off Dick as an appropriate suitor and gently nudges her to be nicer to him. However, Madge articulates her strong preference for Garry as a better choice of a wooer because he has color, glamour and flamboyance. Madge apologizes to her adoptive mother for overreacting to her slight disapproval and saying she is not her mother. Then, Sally and Garry have an argument over the amount of time he has been spending with Madge. After storming out of his building, Sally looks back to see her hurrying up the steps to his apartment.
An unhappy Madge seeks comfort in the arms of the worldly reporter, who proposes marriage. However, she wants to clear her conscience by confiding in him the Allison family secret. In return, Garry wants to clear his conscience by telling her about his history of womanizing. They agree to forget the past and move forward with nuptials. Then, a downcast Sally enters a cocktail bar to order a drink while an intoxicated Yvette is sitting at the other end and rejoicing alone in her good fortune. The annoying parolee flaunts a hundred-dollar bill in front of the barkeep (George Cleveland) and tells him she is set to sail in the night home to France. In addition, Sally overhears her mentioning the name Monsieur Allison, and thus, Sally thinks she may have a real scoop on the Allisons. When the former inmate passes out, the newswoman takes her home. Sally discovers a stack of cash in her purse and hides it in her pocket. She plans to exact revenge on Garry by exploiting Yvette's desire to receive back her money. All the ex-con has to do is tell the conniving reporter what she knows about the affluent family's past.
When the Allison secret makes the front-page headline, Madge suspects Garry is the source of the leak, and thence, refuses to accept his phone calls. Despite the newly acquired knowledge about Madge's background, Dick makes another attempt at marriage proposal, which requires little encouragement for her to accept this time though acceptance by Dick's mother is a whole different matter. To her son's face, Mrs. Taylor accepts his decision, but she privately urges Madge to consider the potential harm to her fiancé's career if she proceeds with matrimony. Dick's mother also makes a veiled threat to disinherit her son if she does not break off the engagement. At night, Garry steals into Madge's room to deny being the source of the news leak and entice her with an immediate means of escape: travel to Tahiti tomorrow at noon. Madge, hoping to spare Dick the shame and misfortune of being her husband, tells him in the morn when he comes for her to select an engagement ring that she has a change of plan. Madge will be marrying his rival by elopement instead because she is in love with him and not Dick, who respects her decision and placidly wishes her good luck.
After receiving a goading from Garry about his romantic success and confirming his travel plan, Sally endeavors to sabotage his honeymoon rendezvous by seeking out Dick's help but hits a snag: Dick is unwilling to interfere because he respects Madge's autonomy to make life decisions on her own. Therefore, a desperate Sally uses deceit to motivate him to take urgent action; she lies about Garry already being wed to and abandoning another woman and having a kid. Madge boards a cargo ship, and its captain relays a message that a man phoned to say he is temporarily delayed. Then, Dick shows up in place of the newsman and elatedly tells Madge he is looking forward to their long romantic excursion. Dick further explains that Garry is tied up, and sure enough he is tied up when Sally finds him on his sofa near the engineer's business card and a thousand-dollar bill, which Sally is going to deposit into a joint bank account unless he marries her. Thus, Garry agrees to the brilliant marriage, and after Dick reads to Madge his mother's agreeable radiogram, wishing them a wonderful honeymoon, the ship captain marries them as Madge declares a brilliant marriage because it has romance!
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