Summary
Canvas and cordite collide when Natalie Lane—muse to painters, siren to patrons—trades her bohemian garret for a gilt cage, wedding Roddy Warren, heir to a soot-stained fortune. The marriage detonates like a defective ingot: patriarchal wrath, disinheritance, a plunge from penthouse to peeling wallpaper. Roddy, quill in uncalloused hand, fails to sell melodrama; Natalie, to keep gaslight and gruel, slips back into the studio of Byrne Travers, celebrated voyeur of flesh. Brushstrokes resume, secrets fester, until Travers lies bullet-bled on parquet. Suspicion drips onto Natalie’s smock until Mimi, a French mannequin with envy for marrow, confesses the trigger-pull, shielding Muriel, Roddy’s sister, from the artist’s lecherous ledger. Iron forgives: the elder Warren anoints his daughter-in-law, Roddy pockets a theatre-agency desk, and the couple exit the frame, scorched but soldered.
Synopsis
Natalie Lane, an artist's model, marries Roddy Warren, son of a steel magnate, who has been a persistent suitor and idler; but because she is considered an unsuitable match by his family, Roddy is disinherited. The couple are thus forced to give up their luxurious apartment for a cheap furnished room, and Roddy, inexperienced and totally unfitted for any kind of work, tries his hand, unsuccessfully, at writing plays. To help the domestic finances, Natalie, who has previously resisted the advances of Byrne Travers, a famous artist, agrees to pose for him. Roddy is unaware of this arrangement, but the elder Warren learns of Natalie's clandestine visits to the artist and informs his son; they discover Travers murdered in his apartment. Suspicion first rests on Natalie, but Mimi, a French model, jealous of Travers' attentions to Muriel, Roddy's sister, confesses that she shot him. Natalie, learning of Travers' scheming, protects Muriel. Roddy's father is convinced of Natalie's innocence and is reconciled to his son, who acquires a job with a theatrical agency.
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