Summary
A genteel matron’s fingers, once content to toy with pearl opera glasses, now twitch with larcenous hunger; velvet gloves slip across shop counters like eels over moonlit sand, spiriting away jeweled butterflies that will never again taste air. Mrs. Stanton—Park-Avenue siren turned midnight magpie—confesses her compulsion to the only witness who can still love her: Winifred, a daughter stitched from equal parts lace and iron. One purloined trinket too many, a policeman’s gloved tap on the shoulder, and the gilded façade of the Stanton brokerage shatters into ticker-tape shreds; even Astor clout cannot unsnap the handcuffs of gossip. Exile ferries the broken clan to a salt-stung hamlet where chimneys cough and secrets cling like kelp. There, inside a courthouse smelling of pine soap and old bibles, Winifred’s gaze locks with George Chartris—juror of destinies, dispenser of mercies—his robe as crisp as first snow. A second theft ignites: a diamond crescent vanishes from the Chartris parlor, and Winifred, martyr in white collar, swallows the accusation whole, wrapping her mother’s shame in her own slender wrists. From the bench George watches, conscience hammering against protocol, until he exhumes the truth—landlady, not ladybird, the true spider in the wainscot. With the real culprit dragged into merciless light, Mrs. Stanton’s fever breaks; contraband butterflies dissolve into ash, a marriage re-knits, and the judge slips a circlet of future onto Winifred’s finger, sealing a covenant more glittering than any stolen stone.
Synopsis
Mrs. Stanton, the wife of a prominent broker, confesses to her daughter Winifred that she is a kleptomaniac. One of her escapades results in her arrest, and although she is released through the influence of wealthy friends, the scandal is printed in the newspapers and her husband's business is ruined. Hoping to start a new life, the family moves to a small New England town, and an attachment soon develops between Winifred and George Chartris, a young judge. When Mrs. Chartris discovers that her jeweled pin is missing after a visit to the Stanton home, Winifred is unjustly arrested but accepts the blame in order to save her mother further embarrassment. George, who is presiding over the trial, refuses to believe that Winifred is guilty and after some digging, discovers that the real thief is Mrs. Stanton's landlady. Through her daughter's sacrifice, Mrs. Stanton is cured of her vice and reconciled to her husband. George and Winifred become engaged.
