Summary
A soot-smudged drudge named Connie McGill polishes the Valentines’ silver while humming fugitive arias of escape; one afternoon the glint off a soup tureen flings her gaze across the ballroom where Prentice Blue—penniless, pedigreed—stands like an immaculate comma in a run-on sentence of nouveau-riche clamor. Nathaniel Flint, parvenu coal-baron, covets Blue’s threadbare title for his petulant daughter Helen, so he orders a cyclone of champagne and caviar designed to net the aristocrat in matrimony. Into that gaudy maelstrom slither the Du Geen syndicate—velvet-gloved pickpockets who scent diamonds under the chandeliers—and decide to weaponize coincidence itself. They dress Connie in stolen lamé, coach her in three counterfeit waltzes, and launch her, Cinderella-like, into the masque; at midnight she flees, leaving behind not glass but a shabby satin slipper that unknowingly houses Flint’s safe-key. By dawn the jewels have evaporated, Blue nurses an erotic fever for a nameless girl, and Connie must scrub her own dreams out of the carpet while police bloodhounds sniff the corridors.
Synopsis
Connie McGill, a scullery maid at the Valentines, dreams of better things. One day, while serving, she sees her Prince Charming, Prentice Blue. Although Blue has nothing but his social standing, the nouveau riche Nathaniel Flint wishes his daughter Helen to marry him in order to gain family status. Flint gives a big party for Helen, which attracts the attention of the Du Geen band of crooks. In a scheme, they furnish the unsuspecting Connie with proper clothes, transforming her, and she ends up at the party dancing with Blue, who is enchanted with her. As she departs, she accidentally leaves her slipper with Blue. Unknown to her, she has aided the crooks in stealing jewels that night, and her slipper contains the key to Flint's safe.
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