Summary
A brisk American emissary, Elmer Harmon, alights on fog-wet Parisian boulevards armed with nothing but a fountain pen and the naïve conviction that diplomacy is a gentleman’s handshake. In the kaleidoscopic hush of Montmartre’s electric nights he collides with Cleo—part sylph, part siren—whose limbs speak the language of wind-whipped silk and whose glance can auction a man’s future. One tango across a mirror-balled salon and the contract is sealed: ink on parchment, hearts in chains. Wedded in haste, the pair decamp to Harmontown, Pennsylvania, where the soot-caked mansard roofs glower like puritans and every picket fence trembles at the sight of Cleo’s beaded chemise. The marriage curdles under kerosene lamplight; fortune evaporates; forgery follows. A forged check, an uncle’s name dragged through the ink, a cell in the Tombs. Cleo, left destitute, sells her art to the highest marquee, only to be branded adulteress by a husband who mistakes devotion for betrayal. He flees to the soot of home; she remains, spotlighted, tear-tracked. Truth, a latecomer, arrives by rail: Elmer races back through Pennsylvania mist, hat in trembling hand, ready to grovel at the hem of the woman he never deserved.
Synopsis
Elmer Harmon goes to Paris to sign a contract with the French government, he meets dancer Cleo, with whom he falls in love and she is instrumental in acquiring the contract for him. They are married, and Elmer takes his bride back to his home town in Pennsylvania where the natives are shocked by Cleo's manners and her Parisian attire. In New York, Elmer exhausts his finances, forges his uncle's name to a check, and is arrested. Cleo, in an effort to raise money for her husband's bail, accepts a theatrical engagement, but Elmer misunderstands her association with an old friend and denounces her, returning to Harmontown. Later, he learns the truth and returns to ask her forgiveness.
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