Naomi is a young aspiring artist known to her Bohemian friends as "The Nut." Naomi's alleged nuttiness does not in any way impede the efforts by wealthy Frederick Harmon to make the unworldly heroine his bride. When their first baby is born, Naomi becomes so obsessed with motherhood that she completely ignores poor Harmon, who, to offset his loneliness, begins squiring the vampish Helen Carew. Helen manages to convince Harmon that Naomi has been unfaithful, leading inevitably to divorce-court litigation.

Steve O'Dare, a young New Yorker who has gone off to Wyoming to be a cowboy, returns to New York to sell some cattle. He bores his friends with tales of the exciting Western life, so they plot to trick him with a mock abduction. But although Steve falls for the gag, he ends up turning the tables on his friends.

The story of a poor young woman, separated by prejudice from her husband and baby, is interwoven with tales of intolerance from throughout history.