Tom Moody, a fight manager, and Lorna Moon, his mistress who wants to marry him, are having an argument about Tom’s wife, who will not give him a divorce. Tom, wanting money for the divorce, needs to find a winning fighter. While they are talking, Joe Bonaparte arrives to tell them that Moody’s fighter has broken his hand and cannot fight that night. Joe, whom nobody knows, persuades them to let him substitute, and he wins.

Joe, a musician, had always wanted a good violin, and his father had bought him one for his twenty-first birthday. When Joe returns home, his father, who has not been told of the fight, reads of it in the papers and is very much distressed. He tries to persuade Joe to give up fighting and continue his study of music, but Joe wants to fight. His father, hurt, does not give him the violin.

Joe fights well after that, but there is a serious conflict between the sensitive musician that he truly is and the brutal fighter he has to be. He holds back in the ring, fearing that he will ruin his hands for the violin. When Moody tries to persuade him that fame and money will be more important than music, he succeeds only in antagonizing Joe, who threatens to quit. Lorna agrees to try to persuade Joe to reconsider. Joe is basically a musician, but he has been ridiculed and hurt by people. Fighting is not a part of his nature, but he wants to fight back and music cannot do that for him. While he is explaining all this to Lorna, he has already decided to remain in the ring. When Joe is preparing for a fight tour, Mr. Bonaparte asks Lorna to help the young man find himself. When he tries to give Joe the violin, the boy refuses it. Then he asks for a blessing, which his father refuses to give.

Joe’s tour is a great success except for one fight. He did not fight well on that occasion because he saw a man with a violin and was reminded of his music and his own past. Moody realizes that Joe has to be prevented from having any contact with his family and his past.

The fight world changes Joe’s personality. He likes the money and the notoriety. He buys an expensive sports car, which he drives recklessly, and he becomes difficult to manage. Eddie Fuseli, a gambler and a gunman, wants to buy a piece of Joe, and Joe agrees, to Moody’s dislike. He tells Lorna to take care of Joe in her own way. Joe falls in love with Lorna and asks her to give up Moody. She denies loving Joe and says that she cannot leave Moody because she feels sorry for him. Joe knows that she is not telling the truth when she begins to cry. They talk about their love, and Joe demands that she tell Moody at once. She says that she will, but when she goes to tell him she learns that his wife has agreed to a divorce and that they can be married in a few months. Because of this, she is unable to tell him about her love for Joe. Later Joe has an argument with Moody and demands that Lorna tell Moody about their love. Although Lorna denies that there is anything between them, she confesses the truth to Moody when they are alone again.

One night Mr. Bonaparte comes to see Joe fight. Fuseli is disturbed because he does not want Joe to see his father,...