Dr. Josef Rittenhaus, a popular young society physician of Vienna, at the behest of his friend Waldstein, goes to consider a proposal by Countess von Nessa to donate a site and funds for the erection of a new sanitarium. His wife, Laura, piqued by his apparent indifference, is left in the hands of Carl Tanzer, supposedly the doctor's best friend, whose advances she rejects. Laura contrives to make her husband jealous with a bogus letter, but to no avail; later, escaping from a masher, she meets ...