Summary
A threadbare Spanish-inflected gentry scion, Sylvia Figueroa, pawns her last heirloom rosary for a rattling coastal train ticket, chasing the ghost of Watt Dinwiddle—an idealistic bar-admit who once pledged prosperity beneath mission-grape arbors. San Francisco’s fog, thick as unpaid rent, swallows her letters; hunger hollows pride until the gilded proscenium of “Vanities” swallows her virtue. Rechristened Mabel Flowers, she sells synchronized osculations to strangers for nickels, her mouth a marigold bruised by limelight. When the footlights’ mercury vapor stains her morals the color of tarnished doubloons, she flings the orchid garter back at the leering maître-de. Across Nob Hill, Watt dines on Horner’s inherited coin, parsing legal codicils while Mrs. Nancy Horner, cloaked in sable and ennui, bargains for a divorce that will trade lineage for libido. A paper marriage, a staged tryst, a notarized sin—Sylvia offers her reputation as kindling so Watt’s career can blaze. Yet in the hush of a candle-lit conservatory, Nancy’s lacquered mask cracks: social register pages flutter away like wounded gulls, revealing the primal calculus that love outweighs lucre. Repentance ricochets; forgiveness lands softer than Pacific mist.
Synopsis
Sylvia Figueroa, the orphaned daughter of an impoverished aristocratic family, loves Watt Dinwiddle, a struggling young attorney who has ventured to San Francisco to make his fortune. When, after his departure, Sylvia fails to hear from her lover, she follows him to the city. After spending weeks vainly searching for a job, Sylvia is forced to accept a position in the chorus line of "Vanities." Her performance is a huge success and soon she is featured as "Mabel Flowers, the Kissing Girl." Becoming disgusted with the milieu, however, Sylvia soon quits. Meanwhile, Watt has been cultivating the wealthy Jack Horner, whose wife Nancy desires a divorce because of her husband's lack of social standing. Sylvia agrees to act as corespondent in the suit in return for the promise that Jack will turn over his legal affairs to Watt. However, love triumphs as Nancy realizes that love is more important than social position, and Watt forgives Sylvia for her scandalous conduct.
