Summary
In the burgeoning, cacophonous landscape of early twentieth-century New York, Tessa Doyle represents the quintessential pastoral transplant, a vessel of unadorned sincerity thrust into the artifice of a vaudeville sister act. Her trajectory takes a sharp, cynical turn when she is coerced by her pragmatically ruthless partner, Trixie Dennis, into a matrimonial charade. The catalyst is Billy Swayne, a scion of wealth whose ego has been pulverized by the public rejection of his socialite fiancée, Millicent Lee. In a state of alcohol-induced nihilism, Billy and his confidant Rodney Dolson concoct a scheme to weaponize marriage as an instrument of spite. Tessa, viewing the transaction as a sacrificial means to fund Trixie’s liberation from a previous union, enters into this legal bond with a heavy heart. However, the subsequent attempt at blackmail by Trixie triggers a moral revulsion in Tessa, prompting her to vanish into the city’s anonymity, rejecting the very pittance she bartered her dignity for. The narrative then shifts toward a serendipitous convergence; Tessa, reinvented as a private secretary, unknowingly enters the employ of Billy’s mother. The eventual reunion of the estranged spouses, stripped of their initial pretenses and intoxicants, facilitates a genuine emotional alchemy, culminating in a secondary, authentic union that seeks to overwrite the transactional sins of their first encounter.
Synopsis
Tessa Doyle, an innocent country girl who has come to New York and joined a vaudeville sister act, becomes embroiled in a scheme to earn money at her partner Trixie Dennis' insistence. When millionaire Billy Swayne is jilted by his fiancee, Millicent Lee, he and his friend Rodney Dolson get drunk and decide that Billy must get married that night. Tessa agrees to marry Billy so that Trixie can use the money to obtain a divorce. After the marriage, Trixie tries to blackmail Billy. Tessa becomes angry and leaves without accepting any payment. Later, after she has become the private secretary to a woman who turns out to be Billy's mother, Tessa meets Billy again. They fall in love and get married again.
