Summary
A prim Georgian manor, all hush and heirloom lace, houses restless Alice Roydant, whose marriage to George—once a pastoral idyll—wilts under the watchful eye of her puritanical uncle Nicholas Barrable. When the couple flees to Manhattan’s gilt canyons, the city’s electric promises corrode their vows: George gambles on rising tickertape, Alice on the fading hope that love can survive absence. Into their gilded vacuum glides Attlie Damuron, a flame-haired siren who smells of Turkish tobacco and defaulted bonds, extracting blackmail like a jeweler prying stones from a crown. Drunk on panic, George snarls at Alice; she, stung and half-numb, entertains the silk-gloved courtship of Lord Sulgrave, a houseguest whose title is longer than his scruples. One midnight she slips Sulgrave a perfumed invitation, then—pulse hammering—recoils from the abyss, barring the door against her own reckless note. Sulgrave crashes across the threshold, a storm in white tie; during the scuffle he downs what he believes to be celebratory champagne, but it is her nightly bromide, and he sinks into a final, dreamless stupor. With Barrable’s sudden largesse, Alice stages a suicide tableau, scrubbing the scandal from her marital sheets. The Roydants retreat to the countryside, chastened, pockets refilled, hearts cauterized, swearing that innocence—like a cracked porcelain cup—can be glued, if never quite made whole again.
Synopsis
George and Alice Roydant live in the country with her wealthy uncle Nicholas Barrable, who wants to keep them from the city's temptations. After they become bored and move to New York, George neglects Alice as he successfully speculates on the market. He becomes involved with Attlie Damuron, an adventuress who soon begins to blackmail him. After George, upset at his situation, angrily rebukes Alice, she decides to accept the advances of Lord Sulgrave, a guest in their home. She sends him a note to come to her bedroom, but when he knocks, she regains her self-respect and refuses to allow him to enter. Sulgrave forces his way in, and after struggling with her, accidentally drinks her sleeping potion and dies. After George confesses his trouble with Attlie, Alice makes it appear that Sulgrave poisoned himself in his own room. Finally, Barrable arrives and helps them financially, they return to the country, and vow never to stray again.
