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The Payment Synopsis

When the wealthy Robert Reyburn offers to pay for struggling painter Phyllis Page to continue her studies in Europe, he is not interested simply in serving as a patron of the arts. As a result, they indulge in a brief romance behind the back of Robert's wife Edith, then, several years later, Phyllis returns to the United States as a famous artist and becomes a high society favorite. Later, Edith successfully arranges a romance between her brother Dick and Phyllis. When Dick proposes, however, Edith turns him down, because she knows that, as his wife, she eventually would have to tell him who gave her the money for her European training and explain the conditions under which the money was offered.

Home Synopsis

Bessie Wheaton returns from Europe to find that her nouveau-riche family has adopted and magnified the worst characteristics of the upper class. Her father spends all of his time at the club, her mother cultivates snobbishness, and her sister thinks only of marrying into royalty. To shake them out of their aristocratic poses, Bessie decides to reflect all of their faults, becoming as lazy as her father and as status conscious as her mother. She even rejects her own sweetheart, Allan Shelby, to lure Count d'Orr away from her sister. Finally, her family members confront her and she angrily tells them that she was only mirroring their behavior. She then runs away, but Allan, with whom she quickly reconciles, brings her back, just as her family acknowledges their recent burlesque of the upper crust.