Part of a fiction feature about an artist, Jacques, and Marguerite, the street waif he rescued. The first intertitle reads: "How slight a chance may raise or sink a soul." Marguerite, the heroine, is dusting a bedroom. She accidentally knocks a book out the window, narrowly missing a passerby, a shifty looking individual. He picks it up and enters the house to return it. According to the intertitle he says "Beautiful lady, does this octavo I received on my cranium belong to you?" He returns the book and says "I know the domicile, Mademoiselle! - it once sheltered a hairy animal known as 'The Beast'! ... " Though Marguerite wishes him to leave, he shuts the door. She says: " ... please go!" He moves toward her, grabs her and tries to kiss her. She struggles and yells. In the hallway, the hero, Jacques, arrives at the door of his own room. He hears the woman's cries and breaks in. She runs to him. The two men stare at each other. The shifty looking man says "Why, if it isn't 'The Beast' - and all dressed up in his Sunday clothes!" He laughs. Jacques sends Marguerite away and tells the other man "Get out!". The man refuses. Jacques throws him into the hallway where they fight. Jacques eventually throws him down the stairs. Jacques returns to the woman and says: "You must forgive me, little girl. I lost my head. I keep too much in my heart.!" They embrace. In a restaurant, the first man joins a table of friends. He says: "Well, I have found the cause of 'The Beast's' reformation - a Dainty little Diana!" Horace Chapron, one of the rakes, replies: "Likely a chambermaid out of work!" There is shot of Horace and he speaks again: "I'll have to look her over!" The first man replies: "A waste of time, Horace. She is not your kind." Horace replies: "Come, pledge me a dinner! If, one month from this hour she is not mine - I will pay!" The five men at the table agree to the wager. There is an iris-in, iris-out shot. Jacques and the girl are together. Jacques says: "Just think little sweetheart, one month from tomorrow is our wedding day," The next intertitle says "A Month Later. The payment of the wager." At the restaurant, the five men and their wives are gathering. Horace is among them. Jacques arrives and one man from the table, Varny, goes over to greet him. Jacques says: "Oh, Varny! I have not seen you and your comrades for over a month. May I join the party?" Varny and Jacques sit at another table, talking. Horace stands up and says: "Twenty-five bottles of wine, Mother Picard! It concerns a bet between these gentlemen and myself! They will pay!" ~Horace Chapron stands up in the restaurant, to make a toast to Marguerite, Jacque's fiancée. Jacques is seated at a table in the background. This is the eve of the wedding of Jacques and Marguerite. An intertitle reads: "To my Marguerite!" Jacques, to the right, reacts to the toast. There is an irised-in shot of Horace making the toast. An intertitle reads: Horace says: "Come, will not 'The Beast' join me?" Varny tries to calm Jacques down. The intertitle says: Varny says: "Let us go home, Jacques, I ... ". Horace gives a second toast, leaving no doubt that he refers to Marguerite. The intertitle says: "to my sweetheart, Marguerite, who works for Madame Céleste!" There is a medium shot of the confrontation between Horace and Jacques. The intertitle reads: Jacques demands: "Retract that!" Intertitle: Horace replies: "Her ring!, as proof of Marguerite's unfathfulness to Jacques." Horace holds the ring. Intertitle: Jacques accuses Horace: "You stole it - Confess or I will kill you!" Jacques attacks Horace, as Varny tries to restrain him. Intertitle: Horace speaks: "First , I challenge you to a duel, and while I am waiting I am going to break your heart ... " Intertitle: Horace continues: "... Your fiancée gave me this ring tonight, between her kisses!" Marguerite, in a hat and coat, writes at a desk. Before she can leave, Jacques arrives with Varny, and reads the note. With Varny looking on, Marguerite begs for forgiveness. After she leaves, Jacques is shown sitting alone in his room, depressed. Intertitle: Marguerite is speaking to Varny: "Let him kill me! What does it matter, now?" Varny tries to calm Marguerite. An intertitle, tinted blue to indicate night, says: "We have come to arrange the duel for Monsieur Chapron ...". There is a long shot, also tinted blue, of the two men sent by Horace, speaking to Varny in the hallway of the building where Jacques lives. Intertitle: "Burying his dream with the night." Alone in her room, Jacques crushes Marguerite's note and throws her glove. There is a medium shot of Jacques and then another medium shot of Varny and Marguerite talking. In an intertitle Marguerite says: "I know I have no right here, but won't you please make him read my letter?"
