Summary
A penniless orphan, flames still clinging to her scorched apron, slips through Manhattan’s indifferent grid and—by the quirk of a forged letterhead—reinvents herself as secretary to a velvet-draped dowager whose chandeliered parlor smells of rosewater and old banknotes. Between dictation and clandestine identity juggling, the girl becomes reluctant shepherd to a listless heir who prefers blood-splattered basement prize-fights to champagne toasts. Identity, class, and desire pirouette through drawing-room farce, boxing arenas, and moonlit rooftops until the masquerade unravels in a third-act confession that lands like a left hook to the heart.
Synopsis
Mary Wayne (Constance Talmadge) is left alone and penniless in New York City after her father dies. She desperately needs a job after being thrown out of her apartment for causing a small fire while cooking. At an employment agency she becomes fast friends with a sick girl, Nell Norcross, and assumes her identity and good references to start work as a secretary for elderly socialite Caroline Marshall, which soon involves playing wrangler to the lady's college-dropout nephew William "Bill" Marshall (Vincent Coleman). Bill is much more interested in going to illegal boxing matches with his buddy Peter Stearns (Ned Sparks) than in throwing lavish dinner parties for his family's high-society friends. While Mary tries to do her job and keep her true identity from being discovered, William begins to fall in love with her.
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