Summary
In a hushed New-England mansion where every footstep echoes like a verdict, Genevra French—rose-lipped, corseted, and quietly ferocious—grows up beneath the brass-buttoned tyranny of her widowed father. A single illicit volume, dog-eared and reeking of speakeasy perfume, slips into her white-gloved world; its pages promise autonomy via the oldest currency between genders. Enter Lawrence Tabor, family friend, respectable, slightly bored, and therefore ripe for experiment. Genevra parrots the manual’s flirtations, becomes Pygmalion to her own Galatea, and watches the older man tilt toward obsession. Marriage follows—less a union than a jailbreak. Once the ring is warm, she unsheathes the truth: she wed to escape, not to obey. Liberty tastes like gin and jazz, so she pursues both, zeroing in on Jack Lanchome, a lounge panther whose hobbies include leaning in doorways and ruining reputations. Lawrence forbids the introduction; Genevra, predictably, issues the invitation herself. One gas-lit supper later, she is pinned against a red-plush banquette, the locked door a verdict sharper than any parental scold. The husband arrives like a delayed thunderclap; blood, torn chiffon, and repentance swirl. Next morning the predator reappears, but now wearing khaki—he claims the near-crime awakened a long-dormant conscience and enlists to die clean in French mud. Genevra, ignorant of the epiphany she triggered, nestles back into marital order, her thirst for freedom traded for the sweeter illusion of safety.
Synopsis
Genevra Frinch, the pretty daughter of Major French, is brought up in a strict environment. Her nature revolts. She wants freedom. A book, entitled "How to Attract the Opposite Sex," falls in her hands, she reads it and absorbs some of its teachings. Lawrence Tabor, who is counted as one of the few friends of her father, visits them. Parrot-like, she practices some of the book's theories on him, and he becomes fascinated with her. After several secret meetings, Genevra asks Lawrence if he will take her as his wife. He consents, and they get married. Shortly afterward she tells her husband she married him to save herself from her prison of a home, and that she is going to be free and act as she pleases. She meets Jack Lanchome, an idler, whose only occupation is to fascinate women, and demands of her husband to be introduced to him. Lawrence refuses, stating that he will not insult her by introducing her to such a man. Her desire to meet him now becomes the stronger. She invites him to the house. After several meetings Lanchome arranges a little supper in a café of bad reputation. After dinner he locks the door and assaults her. Lawrence gets there just in time to save her from the villain's hands. Genevra begs her husband to take her home, promising that in the future she will disobey him no more. Next day Lanchome appears in Lawrence's office. The latter hands him a check, but he refuses to accept it, saying that that was the first good act he has ever done in his life, and that he will accept no pay for it. Further, that he has enlisted in the army to fight in France, intending to keep to the straight path. Genevra is ignorant of the frame-up, but well cured and happy with her husband.
Motion Picture News, September 28, 1918
