This is a film with a very strange plot. There are so many bizarre plot elements that I think the overall picture comes off as very, very difficult to believe and is one of the worst films I've seen that stars Clara Bow. Now the film sure LOOKS nice...but the plot?! Weird.
The film begins with a gang of thieves breaking into a rich professor's house. However, things don't go smoothly. One of the robbers wants to kill Professor Marcel--but the other stops him. Just then, the cops arrive. Marie (Clara Bow--who is the lookout) escapes, the would-be killer is killed and Armand (the good thief) is protected by the Professor--who tells the police that he's his house guest. You can understand this--after all, this lovely thief did save Marcel. However, this scene and the subsequent scenes might be interpreted to have a gay subtext when seen today--especially when the Professor invites Armand to live with him and treats him in a very familiar manner.
In the meantime, Marie sneaks into a party at Professor Marcel's house and sees Armand--with another woman. She assumes that he no longer loves her and she is angry--determined to destroy Marcel for taking Armand away from her. So, she later pretends to be a rich lady and meets Marcel--and makes him fall in love with her. Just after the marriage, Marie's mother reveals to Marcel the truth--and that she'd stolen Marie from a rich family when she was a baby(???!!!). And, without knowing the truth, Marie then tells Marcel that she married him just to get revenge on him for breaking up the relationship between her and Armand(??!!). JUST THEN (again), Armand shows up--and the old gang does as well and shoots Marie!!!! Then, she miraculously survives AND the Professor leaves--allowing Armand to have Marie for himself!!!! This has to be the most contrived plot I've ever seen in a silent film--and I've seen about a thousand of them. So many silly surprises and twists thrown into a film barely over an hour long--it made me laugh with all these story elements. While the film looks nice and is entertaining, it also is fundamentally stupid. Not one of Bow's shining moments and the sort of fluff she'd no longer be doing once she really hit it big with films like "Wings" and "It"...at least until her star faded at the advent of sound.