The Coquette
Summary
The Coquette unfolds like a hand-tinted postcard hurled into a threshing machine: ledgers bleed red, paternal guilt curdles into extortion, and a flapper’s eyelash becomes the lever that topples a municipal bureaucracy. Cadwell, a pen-pusher whose off-the-books arithmetic is about to be spot-lit, kneels before Doris—his only child, all porcelain cheekbones and flinty gaze—and spills embezzled secrets like coins from a torn sack. Love, weaponized, answers: Doris recruits Don, her desk-mate and clandestine flame, to doctor the incriminating columns. Their erasure saves the father but brands the sweetheart; Don is railroaded into a striped suit while board-room whispers insist on his probity. Cadwell, now shackled by gratitude rather than iron, bullies Doris into a velvet-lined engagement with Lane, a financier whose smile never reaches the eyes. Rebellion sparkles: she trains her coquettish artillery on Harris, a hulking turnkey whose heart rattles like a lonely cup-and-saucer, promising marriage in exchange for a jail-break. Night, rain, a skeleton key—Don slips the cage, leaps into a roadster piloted by Doris, and the duo tear across moon-scabbed backroads while sirens braid the dark. Bullets sing; Harris, love-drunk, steps into their trajectory and folds like wet cardboard. Cadwell, frantic to preserve respectability, sets hounds and headlines on the lovers’ trail. Cornered in a freight-yard dawn, the fugitives collide with Hall—the once-doubtful employer whose conscience has fermented. In a governor’s paneled office scented of cigar ash and last-chance absolution, Doris unsheathes the truth; Cadwell’s tongue, slick with denial, trips on its own deceit, and iron doors clang shut on the real thief. The lovers exit into over-exposed sunlight, hand-in-hand, debts paid in full.
Synopsis
Knowing that the examination about to be made of his books will reveal his peculations, Cadwell confesses to his daughter. Enlisting the aid of Don, her sweetheart, who is employed in the same office, Doris saves her father from disgrace. As the result, however, the crime is shifted to Don's shoulders and the boy is sent to prison. This, although Hall, his employer, believes him innocent. Later, Cadwell compels Doris to become engaged to Lane, a man of wealth. Determined to wed no one but Don, Doris fascinates Harris, one of the prison guards, and induces him to aid her in her plan to free Don. In turn, she promises to become Harris's wife. Don escapes from jail, aided by the keeper. The two are joined by Doris and make a break for liberty in the girl's auto. The pursuit is taken up and in the running fight which ensues, Harris meets his death. Cadwell learns of the escape and does all he can to bring about the capture of the fugitives. Don and Doris are wed. Hunted, the two are on the verge of desperation when they accidentally meet Hall. Resolved to shield her father no longer, Doris tells Hall the truth. The latter promptly takes the girl and the escaped prisoner to see his friend, the Governor. Cadwell is present during this interview. The father denounces Doris's story, but a slip of the tongue reveals the truth, the real culprit is overtaken by the retribution while Doris and Don know happiness once more.
