Summary
Moonlit seraglios, Art-Nouveau latticework, and a schooner gliding like a lacquered dragon across indigo waters—this 1920 silent reverie detonates the drawing-room corset and lets the pieces drift like fireflies. Christina Elliott, heiress to a railroad dynasty spun from steel and Protestant guilt, sails toward a mist-veiled island to rescue her cousin Gerald from Lotta St. Regis, a serpentine contortionist whose hip-length hair drips with absinthe and marquee lights. Instead she collides with Adrian Maitland, a sulphur-eyed tactician determined to scrub his brother’s obsession clean. Identity pirouettes: he mistakes the prim cousin for the serpent-dancer; she, amused by the cosmic joke, drapes herself in Lotta’s bohemian skin. On a yacht trimmed with onyx and champagne they play a carnal chess that turns into a blood-beat of genuine longing. Lotta, spying from the dunes, schemes to blackmail the Elliots with a photograph of moonlit kisses, but the wedding bells already echo across the Atlantic, turning scandal into legitimacy and leaving the dancer with nothing but the hiss of retreating surf.
Synopsis
Christina Elliott is concerned over her cousin Gerald Elliott, who has fallen desperately in love with Lotta St. Regis, a snake dancer of questionable reputation. Their wealthy family, the Vardens, threaten to disinherit Gerald if he keeps up with Lotta, so Christina goes to call on Lotta at her island cottage to see for herself what is going on. Meanwhile, Adrian Maitland arrives in order to persuade Lotta to leave his younger brother Ted alone. When Lotta is not at home, Adrian mistakes Christina for Lotta, and she goes along with it for fun. He gets Christina on his yacht, intending to compromise her, but falls in love with her instead. After telling him who she really is, Christina and Adrian decide to marry. Meanwhile, Lotta has seen the pair on board, and she intends to win Gerald and his money, or ruin Christina's reputation with this evidence. The plan backfires, however, when the marriage is revealed, and Gerald refuses to have anything more to do with Lotta.
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