Anita Stewart in "Human Desire" (1919) - A Louis B. Mayer Production

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An orphan, Bernice (Anita Stewart), is raised almost to womanhood by the good sisters in an Italian convent, in Naples, Italy. Bernice is inspired by a statue of the infant Christ in the hands of the Madonna, and she is seized by a great desire to have a child she can call her own. Learning that there are infants dying of hunger and neglect in America, Bernice determines to come to their aid. Masquerading as a boy, she catches the eye of Jasper Norton (Robert Steele) who helps her with her passage to America. He organizes a convent sister to meet her at the New York docks but as luck would have it Berenice arrives in New York, gets lost in the crowd and, dressed as a boy, finds herself alone, hungry, destitute and friendless on the doorstep of Robert Lane (Conway Tearle), an artist whose wife, Helen Lane (Eulalie Jensen), has refused to divorce him. Robert is at the cross roads with his huge canvas "Madonna and Child". The model, while a great girl, is hardly Madonna material and the...