Summary
Two sisters plummet from the gilt-edged altitudes of Gilded-Age mannequin stardom when Eleanor, elder and hawk-eyed, swats away the sugar-dusted talons of predatory buyers circling dewy Jane. Penniless but proud, they descend into the gaslit underbrush of Manhattan where Eleanor reinvents herself as “Isis the Eastern Mystic,” wrapping séance parlors in incense and borrowed hieroglyphics until silk-clad patrons fling enough coin to restore their crinoline supremacy. Jane, restless, speeds off in a borrowed Stutz Bearcat and lands—lips bruised, reputation teetering—beside the married Hamilton at a roadhouse straight out of a pulp fever dream. Eleanor storms in like a Valkyrie in ostrich feathers, yet the scandal slips through her gloved fingers; Mrs. Hamilton sues, brandishing Jane’s monogrammed glove as Exhibit A. To cauterize the gossip, Jane is shipped to a gilded exile up-river while Eleanor stays behind to guard the smoldering ruins of their social map. Enter Ernest Bickley, heir to a locomotive fortune, half poet, half steeplechase casualty, who courts Eleanor with the heedless velocity of a runaway observation car. At a weekend house-party that feels like whiskey poured over lace, adventuress Mrs. Herriard—eyes sharp as hatpins—sniffs out Ernest’s weakness and stages a campaign of whispers, dropped letters, and moonlit ambushes. Jane, meanwhile, falls for George Saunders, Ernest’s rugby-scarred wingman, but the mere thought that George might read tomorrow’s headlines sends her into a spiral of trembling gloom. When the divorce trial explodes across the broadsheets, a grainy photo mislabels Eleanor as the femme fatale; she swallows the lie whole, claiming the scarlet letter to spare her sister. Ernest, refusing the script, engineers a door-knock ruse that cracks Eleanor’s sacrifice open like a Fabergé egg. In the final reel, loyalty outshines scandal: Jane’s innocence is vouched for, Mrs. Herriard’s machinations evaporate, and the sisters walk arm-in-arm into a dawn that feels suspiciously like absolution.
Synopsis
Eleanor Alderson and her young sister Jane lose their positions as models when Eleanor prevents Jane from accepting buyers' invitations. Eleanor accepts help from a retired seeress and becomes known as "Isis the Eastern Mystic," establishing herself and her sister fashionably. One of Jane's joyrides results in her being compromised with Hamilton, a married man whose wife seeks evidence for divorce. Eleanor arrives at the roadhouse in time to save Jane, but Mrs. Hamilton files her suit, naming Jane. Eleanor has met and loves Ernest Bickley the harum-scarum scion of a wealthy family. To avoid scandal, Jane accepts the hospitality of friends in a nearby city. Adventuress Mrs. Herriard sets her cap for Ernest and, learning of his love for Eleanor, attempts to break up the match while a guest at a party at the Bickley home, where Eleanor is also visiting. In her exile, Jane falls in love with George Saunders, a chum of Ernest's, but she is panic-stricken when he attends the party, fearing that he will learn the truth. A news story of the divorce trial, accompanied by a photograph of Eleanor, causes her to be regarded as the co-respondent, and to protect Jane, she finally acknowledges that she is the woman in the case Ernest refuses to believe Eleanor's self-accusation. He learns that she has a sister, and by a clever scheme, leads her to believe that Jane is at the door, Eleanor falling into the trap and disclosing the secret. Her loyalty to her sister wins the entire Bickley family and Jane's name is cleared of the stain when it is learned she was innocently led into the affair.
