Summary
At the heart of this intricate drawing-room comedy lies a seemingly innocuous pair of embroidered evening slippers, whose journey through the social stratifications of early 20th-century high society precipitates a cascade of romantic misapprehensions and marital discord. The narrative commences with Walter Huntley, whose ill-fated engagement to Mabel Brown leaves him with the delicate footwear, subsequently re-gifted to his unassuming maid. Concurrently, the eponymous Mrs. Leffingwell acquires an identical pair, deploying them as an instrument of allure at a fashionable soiree, where her captivating presence, amplified by the distinctive slippers, provokes the possessive ire of her husband, Mr. Leffingwell. This initial spark of jealousy is fanned into a raging conflagration when, later that fateful evening, Mr. Leffingwell witnesses a figure removing the distinctive slippers in Walter’s chambers, misinterpreting his maid's innocent indulgence in new finery as evidence of his wife's infidelity. The ensuing tempestuous dinner party, fraught with the delicate re-alignment of Walter and Mabel's affections, culminates in a dramatic confrontation. Mr. Leffingwell, discovering a pair of the incriminating slippers drying by the fire, stands poised to dismantle his marriage, only for fate – or rather, the timely appearance of the maid with *her* identical pair – to unravel the tangled skein of suspicion, thus salvaging the Leffingwells' precarious union through a revelation of sartorial serendipity.
Synopsis
Walter Huntley purchases a pair of embroidered evening slippers for his fiancée, Mabel Brown, but after she breaks off their engagement, he gives them to his maid. Mrs. Leffingwell, meanwhile, buys an identical pair to wear to a fashionable dance, where she so impresses Walter that Mr. Leffingwell leaves the ballroom in anger. As he passes Walter's room later that evening, he sees a woman remove the embroidered slippers from her feet, and although it is only the maid trying on her new shoes, Leffingwell believes that his wife has succumbed to Walter's overtures. On a stormy evening soon afterwards, Mrs. Leffingwell attends a dinner at which Walter and Mabel, who are on the verge of a reconciliation, are also present, but when Mr. Leffingwell arrives, he finds his wife's slippers drying by the fire. Just as the jealous husband is about to leave his wife for good, the maid appears with her matching pair of shoes, and the Leffingwells' marriage is saved.
