Summary
In the soot-choked corridors of a nameless metropolis, Nadia—ink-stained fingers, hem frayed like burnt paper—transcribes other men’s verdicts while her own life is dictated by a soused patriarch who snatches coins for whiskey and a mother who barters dignity for silk. Across the partition, Mabel glides in peacock splendor, whispering invitations to a gilded underworld. One dusk, Nadia slips into her friend’s lamplit boudoir, exchanges calico for chiffon, and tastes champagne that fizzes like forbidden constellations. Enter Ashton, a sybarite whose carnations reek of absinthe and roulette; he drapes her in mink, teaches her that desire can be monetized, then succumbs to a heart as cracked as his signet ring. With the cadence of a funeral march she inherits his townhouse, only to discover that marble halls echo louder when love is absent. At a salt-laced resort she collides with Phillip—sun-browned, earnest, already promised to Isobel’s apple-cheeked grace—yet Nadia’s iris-dark gaze rewrites his destiny in a single exhalation. She juggles septuagenarian suitors—Lawlor’s bullion against Villars’ lesser purse—while concealing ledger lines of sin beneath powder and lace. The masquerade shatters when Phillip stumbles upon her draped over Lawlor’s fortune like a leopardess on carrion; vows unravel, wedding bells migrate to Isobel’s finger, and Nadia boards an ocean liner with a groom as cold as the gold he stacks. In equatorial heat she stalks Phillip anew, penning clandestine notes scented with frangipani and menace. On a cliff where gulls scream like Greek chorus, she pushes Lawlor toward jagged fate, yet his gnarled fist knots in her sable hair; together they plummet—two comets of avarice and remorse—splattering the rocks crimson at twilight.
Synopsis
Nadia, a poorly-paid stenographer, works in offices adjoining those where Mabel, her girl chum is employed. Nadia wears shabby clothing. Mabel is resplendent in beautiful garments. Nadia's father, a drunkard, forces the pay envelope from her hand, and the mother resorts with other men. "What's the use," says Nadia, when she is forced to contribute to satisfy her father's appetite for liquor, and sees her mother flaunt her shame. And so she listens to the urgings of Mabel that she become one to a party of four at Mabel's luxurious home. That night when Nadia leaves the office she goes to Mabel's flat, dons Mabel's finery and there meets Ashton, a wealthy rounder. She tastes liquor for the first time, wears a fine gown for the first time and dines for the first time in a questionable cabaret. In natural consequence, Nadia leaves her home and becomes a friend of Ashton. As time passes, Nadia learns the power of her beauty, and as Ashton's health declines, she schemes to secure his riches. She finally induces Ashton to purchase her a fine home. Stricken with heart disease, the man dies. A month later Nadia closes her beautiful town house and repairs to a fashionable seaside resort where she meets Amos Lawlor and Jules Villars, wealthy bachelors. She also meets Phillip Morton, a young businessman, who is in love with Isobel Warren. Nadia, when she meets Philip, meets the first man she has ever loved. Phillip's infatuation for Nadia grows, and when the siren finally resolves to leave the seashore Phillip follows her, emulating the example of the two aged suitors, Lawlor and Villars. At Nadia's town house, the woman is puzzled as to what method to use to keep secret from Phillip Morton, the admiration so openly shown for her by the two aged suitors. The woman is torn betwixt the love of gold as typified by the two old men and the passionate love she holds for Phillip. She carefully hides from Phillip the fact that she is anything but pure and innocent. What shall she do? Shall she be satisfied as the wife of Phillip with but his love? One day the question is settled. Nadia discards Villars and submits to the attentions of Lawlor, who has the most money. Nadia plots to keep Lawlor and Phillip Morton, both constant callers at her home, from meeting one another. Phillip arrives unannounced one day and discovers Nadia in the arms of another. Then it is that he spurns the woman, and later woos and wins Isobel Warren. Nadia, answering the lure of gold, marries Lawlor, but she never forgets her passion for Phillip. As time passes, Phillip Morton is ordered to South America. When Nadia reads in a newspaper of Morton's intended journey, she compels her aged husband to take her there. In South America Phillip Morton and Nadia meet again. Morton has long since lost all his infatuation for the siren, a fact which causes Nadia to long more passionately for the love of the man whom she has sacrificed for the lure of gold. Desperately the woman hits upon a scheme. She writes Phillip a note asking him to call at the hotel. Before his arrival Nadia garbs herself voluptuously. When Phillip, enticed by a subterfuge, enters Nadia's private apartments in the hotel, she exerts every woman's wile to win him to her. But she is unsuccessful in winning him. However she does not give up and conceives an idea that Phillip Morton may be tempted to divorce his wife and marry her should her aged husband die. The woman entices her aged husband to the top of a cliff, where she pushes him off, intending that he meet his death that way. Unknown to Nadia Lawlor is rescued by a beachcomber. The old man, burning with the desire for vengeance, begins his slow and painful climb up the cliff side. Phillip, walking along the cliff, again encounters Nadia. Again the woman pleads with him. Her flushed face with its uncanny beauty presses close to Phillip. He again spurns the woman and turns away. Nadia stands wondering there at the brink of the precipice. She finally realizes that her life has been in vain. She turns to leave the place. As she turns, she encounters the form of her aged husband. In quavering tones the old man accuses his wife of attempting to murder him. In a last desperate attempt to shut out the horrid spectacle from her sight and mind, Nadia again shoves the doddering old man to his death. He falls, but as he does so, he clutches Nadia's hair with his hands, and she, too, is dragged over the precipice and falls with Lawlor to death on the rocks below.
