Summary
Edith Parrish, a porcelain-pale guardian armed only with candor and a sable-lined coat, engineers what she believes to be a surgical social strike: she parades the mercenary Dora beneath the smoldering gaze of Ralph Brent, a lounge-lizard whose smiles arrive pre-liquefied. The plan misfires like a cracked champagne-cork; Dora, now Mrs. Gordon, filches Edith’s wrap, steals to the Oak Tree Inn, and by dawn has stapled another woman’s reputation to her own misadventure. Peter, returning with frost still on his cuffs, espies the tell-tale garment and, with Victorian thunder, evicts Edith from the hearth she once kept immaculate. In the vacuum that follows, Edith’s chivalric silence—an antique code welded to her bones—collides with Blaine’s wounded pride, Brent’s belated gallantry, and Dora’s glittering guilt, until the film’s final lantern-slide: two couples re-aligned, their hearts scorched but still beating, while the coat that started it all hangs like a ghost in the hall.
Synopsis
To save her good friend, Peter Gordon, from marrying a gold digger named Dora, Edith Parrish introduces the girl to Ralph Brent, a male vamp, knowing that she will fall for Brent's flattery. Dora, however, begs Peter to advise Edith against associating with Brent. After the couple are married, Edith visits them at their country home. One night, while Peter is away on business, Dora appropriates Edith's coat and goes to the Oak Tree Inn with Brent. As the two are leaving the inn, Peter and his business partner, Blaine, who is in love with Edith, see them. The next morning, Peter recognizes Edith's cape and, assuming that she is having an affair with Brent, orders her to leave the house, subsequently informing his partner of Edith's faithlessness. Edith, wishing to shield Peter from discovering the truth about his wife, refuses to deny the charge, causing the breakup of her affair with Blaine, until Brent intervenes and explains the situation to her dejected lover, thus initiating their reconciliation.
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