Summary
A bashful bibliophile, Richard Bolton, drifts through life like a page trembling in an unopened novel, hopelessly enamored of the statuesque Helen yet too timid to speak his heart aloud; across the same genteel parlors glides the predatory Countess Wintershin, a velvet-clad storm who stalks Richard with a hunger that scandalizes the drawing-rooms and ignites her husband’s slow-burning fuse. Their brittle triangle shatters during a languid seaside holiday: Richard, seeking solitude, floats on sun-silvered waves until the countess glides alongside him in a skiff—panic seizes him, he slips beneath the surface and vanishes, leaving only ripples and rumor. Back on shore, the countess pronounces him drowned; Richard’s eccentric Aunt Mary, a spiritualist who treats the veil between worlds like a lace curtain, convenes a candle-lit séance to coax her nephew’s ghost home. Underwater, however, Richard is very much alive, stroking through kelp forests until he beaches on a sparsely populated island where he collides with Spike O’Brien—a pugilist whose fists have flattened half the West Coast and whose face is Richard’s mirror image. The two men strike a Faustian bargain: Spike will row to the mainland, snatch Richard’s wardrobe, and impersonate him long enough to untangle the social knots. The fighter’s arrival coincides with the crescendo of Aunt Mary’s ritual; candle flames bow, violins shriek, and into this charged ether strides Spike—bare-knuckled, starved for beauty. He first seduces the countess, enraging her husband until steel is drawn at dawn; then, drunk on conquest, he corners Helen, who recoils when she recognizes the swagger is counterfeit. Screams ricochet through the manor; chaos teeters toward tragedy until Richard, sun-chafed and resolute, reclaims his identity, steps between Spike and Helen, and proves that quiet courage can outbox brawny bravado. In the fallout, Helen’s affections pivot from the rough lover to the gentle soul who always lingered in the margins of her life.
Synopsis
Richard Bolton, a timid bookworm, is too shy to declare his love for the beautiful Helen. While she remains unimpressed, however, the Countess Wintershin pursues him relentlessly, to Richard's embarrassment and her jealous husband's dismay. On a seaside vacation, Richard is floating peacefully until the countess surprises him, whereupon he dives under water and does not come up. When the countess reports him drowned, Richard's Aunt Mary, a spiritualist, prepares to contact him through a séance. Meanwhile, Richard swims to an island where he meets fighter Spike O'Brien, who resembles him exactly. Spike is sent to fetch Richard's clothes and arrives just as Aunt Mary's ceremony reaches its climax. Possessed of a deep admiration for beautiful women, the pugilist first romances the countess, which so enrages the count that he challenges his rival to a duel, and then Helen, who, upon realizing that her overzealous lover is not Richard, begins to scream. In the end, the mix-up is straightened out, and Richard successfully defends Helen, who realizes that she prefers him to her rough lover.
