Julian (Percy Marmont) is a poor artist who lives with wife Edith (Alice Joyce) and their newborn baby in Harlem. Struggling to make ends meet, he foregoes his artistic calling and draws for magazines. Reaching his limits, Julian convinces his wife he could reach higher grounds if he went to Paris, and he moves to Paris while Edith works at a shop on Fifth Avenue. Their lives evolve differently from then on: Edith is courted by a wealthy suitor, whom she ignores while pining for her husband; while Julian fails to meet his goals in Paris and returns to New York City three years later. Their meeting highlight how different their routes have been.