The presses at The New York Evening Star stop too late to kill a false story on heiress Connie Allenbury, so she sues the paper for libel, asking $5,000,000 in damages.  Warren Haggerty, the paper's editor, would do anything to get her to drop the suit, although he is happy that it has saved him from finally taking his girl friend Gladys to the altar.

Hoping to get themselves out of the suit, Haggerty and the owner, Mr. Bane, reluctantly track down former Star employee Bill Chandler, a specialist in libel cases.  Bill tricks Haggerty into a big salary, then plans his strategy:  he will marry someone in name only, then pursue Connie and have his "wife" find them in a compromising situation, thereby forcing her to drop the suit.  Although she doesn't like the idea, Gladys agrees to marry Bill when Haggerty promises to marry her later.  Bill arranges to meet Connie and her father, J.B. Allenbury, and eventually she becomes attracted to him.

On a fishing trip, Bill begins to return her affection and he tricks Haggerty and Gladys into postponing the plans.  Back in New York, Bill and Connie see each other secretly, while Gladys begins to appreciate Bill's suave attentions.  When Haggerty suspects that Bill isn't doing his job, he goes to Connie to plead for the paper and runs into Bill.  He then incites Gladys into going through with the plan by printing a false society column linking Bill and Connie.

He follows Gladys to a charity carnival they are attending.  When Mr.  Allenbury hears gossip that Bill may have a wife, he warns Connie, who instead proposes to Bill.  When Gladys and Haggerty go to their hotel, they discover that Bill and Connie are married and that he has told her everything.  Bill reveals that he had discovered the day before that Gladys' Yucatan divorce from her first husband was not valid and thus her marriage to him was a fake.  Gladys, however, says that she got another divorce later in Reno and really is married to Bill.  She refuses to let Bill go, but Connie makes her realize that she only fell for Bill because he showed her the little kindnesses that Haggerty didn't.  When the women hear the men fighting, Gladys rushes to Haggerty and they make up.  Finally, Mr.  Allenbury arrives and demands an explanation, which they loudly and simultaneously give him.