Summary
A prairie-scented wind kicks up the dust of John Primmel’s anxieties: his sun-browned, trouser-clad daughter Patsy vaults fences instead of curtsies, so he exiles her eastward like a parcel marked ‘fragile femininity.’ The train vomits her into Manhattan’s electric labyrinth only to discover that the intended custodian—her father’s sage friend—has already turned to marble in a mausoleum. The dead man’s son, Dick Hewitt, a tousled bachelor whose tuxedo is as rumpled as his morals, offers the girl shelter in a townhouse that creaks with old money and older secrets. Together they assemble a micro-kingdom of domestics—maid, housekeeper, butler—each a cog in the comic clockwork that will soon strike thirteen. One gin-soaked midnight, adventuress Helene Arnold—equal parts siren and spider—slips a ring on Dick’s finger while he drifts in an alcoholic haze, binding him to a mirage of a marriage. Cue the entrance of Alice, Dick’s hawk-eyed sister, who swoops in demanding propriety and thrusts Patsy toward the altar as the rightful bride. Helene counters with blackmail—ten grand or disgrace—yet Dick’s spine stiffens into a gambling man’s defiance. At a chandeliered soirée, Helene climbs the staircase like Lady Macbeth in sequins, poised to unmask the sham union; instead she locks eyes with the butler, her long-lost legal husband, and the confession detonates in a gasp. Marriage annulled by bigamy, Helene flees to Europe to nurse her wounds—perhaps literally—while Dick, newly unshackled, claims Patsy under confetti of moral irony.
Synopsis
Fearing that his daughter Patsy is becoming a tomboy, John Primmel sends her to a friend back East for education and refinement. Arriving in New York, Patsy discovers that her father's friend has died and his apartment is now inhabited by his son, Dick Hewitt. Dick allows Patsy to stay, and they hire a maid, a housekeeper, and a butler. One night, while Dick is drunk, adventuress Helene Arnold tricks him into marrying her. Soon after, Dick's sister Alice arrives and urges him to marry Patsy, whom he really loves. Helene then threatens to expose Dick unless he pays her $10,000 hush money. Dick refuses and the next evening, while at a party, Helene tells the guests that she has an important announcement to make. Just as she is about to expose Dick, his butler appears and Helene gasps, announces that she is going to Europe to become a nurse, and rushes from the house. The butler then informs Dick that Helene is his wife who deserted him years earlier. Dick's marriage thus nullified, he is free to marry Patsy.
