Summary
Arizona’s sepia-toned mesas become the amphitheatre for a bourgeois farce that pirouettes on the razor-edge between political respectability and carnal urgency. Senator Baldwin, marble-jawed custodian of territorial propriety, finds his pulse hijacked by the languid widow whose mourning weeds conceal a Machiavellian smile; she bargains matrimony against the unresolved virginity of Judith, his lantern-eyed daughter. Judith, craving emancipation from senatorial scrutiny, proposes a ‘chaperoned trial marriage’—a phrase that detonates like perfumed nitroglycerin inside the mahogany-panelled lodge. Into this crucible stumbles Congressman Hamil, all rhetoric and no rhythm; a stable boy, drunk on gossip, wires Washington that the heiress has absconded. The telegram ricochets through mahogany corridors, summoning Courtney—lace-cuff aesthete—and Ted Musgrove, the ranch foreman whose calloused palms carry years of mute devotion. When the senator arrives with a freshly inked marriage certificate tucked like contraband inside his waistcoat, the lodge becomes a pressure cooker of repressed desire, social arithmetic, and moonlit reversals. By the time the honeysuckle wilts on the trellis, Judith has rewritten the ledger of her heart, trading gilt-edged suitors for the dust-scented authenticity of Ted.
Synopsis
U. S. Senator Baldwin of Arizona succumbs to the charms of a widow who refuses to marry him as long as his daughter is single. His daughter, Judith, would prefer a trial marriage properly chaperoned at the Baldwins' country lodge. She finds Congressman Hamil a bore, but the liveryman notifies the Washington press that they have eloped. Courtney, her other suitor, arrives early at the lodge, and the news brings Ted Musgrove, Baldwin's ranch manager who has always loved Judith. Meanwhile, Baldwin, who has secretly married the widow, arrives at the lodge; and after the turmoil Judith decides that Ted is her man.
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