A poor boy who saved a rich girl from drowning is adopted by her family, but he grows into a money-hungry ruthless businessman who would step on others to get to the top of the social ladder.

Horace Vendig shows himself to the world as a rich philanthropist. In fact, the history of his rise from his unhappy broken home shows this to be far from the case. After being taken in by richer neighbors, he started to exhibit an obsessive and selfish urge to make more and more money, loving and leaving women at will to further this end.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}

Extremely wealthy Wall Street businessman Horace Woodruff Vendig--Woody to his college friends--is hosting a lavish by invitation only soirée at one of his mansions to make the official announcement of he donating said mansion to charity promoting and in the name of world peace. His extreme wealth belies his less than humble beginnings and the troubled family life of his childhood. The soirée attendees that know him well, which include friends and friends turned enemies and/or adversaries, know inherently that the donation is not for the philanthropy as it appears on the surface, but for some financial gain whatever that may be. The invitation to those former friends is in part to maintain an appearance of he being a person of upright moral character and in part in the old adage of holding one's enemies close to one's chest. The person who he has known the longest in the room is engineer Vic Lambdin, a friend from childhood and former business partner. As each of those friends turned enemies is introduced, Horace's life story is told in flashback. Horace, Vic, and Martha Burnside, the latter two who led comfortable lives unlike Horace, were inseparable as children. Out of circumstance, the Burnsides took Horace in for the latter third of his minor life despite his own parents still being alive. As they grew into adults, Vic and Martha were seen as being a couple, albeit unofficially, while Martha ended up choosing Horace, who in turn had fallen in love with her. As Horace was provided with one opportunity after another by those that could in his sincerity and affability, he began his climb to the top, each rung of the ladder achieved by increasingly cutthroat measures, he stepping on those that helped him, leaving them behind. Those people include his romantic interests, Martha not immune, he choosing women that could help him in achieving that wealth. This evening is only complicated by Vic bringing his current girlfriend, Mallory Flagg, who Horace had never met but who he cannot help but notice an uncanny resemblance to Martha, arguably the only woman he truly loved, that is until now.—Huggo

While in a philanthropic meeting promoted by the millionaire Horace Woodruff Vendig, the guest Vic Lambdin tells the history of the beginning and end of his friendship with the host to his date Mallory Flagg. When they are boys, Horace is a poor boy from a dysfunctional family and Vic's best friend who saves wealthy Martha Burnside from drowning in a river. Horace is adopted by the rich Burnside family and later sent to Harvard; he gets engaged to Martha, on whom Vic has a crush. When ambitious Horace meets the wealthier Susan Duane, who belongs to a more influential family, he calls off his engagement to Martha and moves to New York with Susan to continue his social raise. Later he meets shark Buck Mansfield and seduces his young wife Christa to profit in business, leading to tragic consequences.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil