The Prince Chap (1916)

Struggling New York sculptor William Peyton is in love with beautiful but cold and calculating society girl Alice Travers. William accepts an invitation from his friend Jack Rodney, Earl of Huntington, to seek his fortune in London. Alice promises to wait until he makes good. Peyton hires Arline Arrington, a model who is forced to work to support her infant daughter and good-for-nothing husband, to pose for a masterpiece he has planned. He also hires Runion, a valet. Alice's cousin Helen Travers calls at Peyton's studio, and just as she enters the model faints and falls into Peyton's arms. She places the wrong construction on the incident. With the passing years, Arline becomes the victim of a lingering malady. Knowing that her days are numbered, she exacts a promise from Peyton to always care for her daughter. Arline dies and her daughter Claudia learns to call Peyton her "daddy" and he tells her the story of "Princess Alice" and the "Prince Chap"--the story of his own life. Helen Travers encounters Peyton and Claudia in a London park, and hearing the girl call Peyton "daddy," she promptly dispatches her information to her cousin in New York. As a result, Alice hurries post haste to London with Paul Helmer, a Wall Street broker, now her suitor. Arriving at Peyton's studio, Alice and Helmer encounter Claudia during the artist's absence and hear her call him "father." As a result Alice renounces him and later marries Helmer. A decade passes; now Claudia is a beautiful girl of 18, and Peyton is wealthy. Helmer, who has been a brutal and dissolute husband, dies, and Alice immediately gets in touch with Peyton to tell him that she is now free. The Earl of Huntington proposes marriage to Claudia, but she refuses. He divines the reason. She now loves Peyton in a different manner than she did as his ward. Alice calls at the studio to win Peyton and Claudia overhears her tell Peyton that she thought all along that Claudia was his daughter and pleads for forgiveness. Claudia believes, as a result, that she is standing between Peyton and happiness. She resolves to flee. The Earl of Huntington arrives at this juncture and Claudia tells him she is now ready to marry him. Knowing of Peyton's love for her, however, he refuses and later Peyton learns that Claudia has always looked upon him as her "Prince Chap" and that she has always hoped to be his princess. He takes her into his arms.