Summary
A milquetoast heir, Roy Hanford, escapes the puritanical ice-storm of his deacon-father’s house—where matrimony has ossified into a crucifix of duty—only to tumble into the neon wilderness of the city. There, Breeze Ballard, a breezy hardware drummer with a smile like a switchblade, installs Roy in the Ajax office where ledgers clack like metronomes counting down innocence. Jeanie MacGregor—luminous, ink-stained, a secular Madonna amid the staplers—ushers Roy into a fragile Eden of rented rooms and lullabies. A year later, the patriarchal glacier arrives: a warrant, a bigamy charge, a public scaffold. To dodge the penitentiary’s maw, Roy annihilates his own vows, scuttling marriage and manhood alike. Jeanie, now a single Persephone with a squalling child, trails her deserter until the earth itself yawns open; Roy plummets from a cliff, his final act of cowardice immortalized in gravity’s indifferent ledger. The village Pharisees—led by the deacon—circle the fallen woman with torches of moral certainty until Breeze re-enters, brandishing a marriage certificate like a shield and a proposal like a lifeline. The curtain falls not on redemption but on the brittle triumph of paperwork over piety.
Synopsis
Weak-willed Roy Hanford, driven from his father's house by the coldness of his stone-hearted wife and the sanctimonious attitude of his father, the deacon, flees to the city. There he is befriended by Breeze Ballard, a salesman for the Ajax Hardware Company who arranges for Roy to work in the office. Roy falls in love with the firm's secretary, Jeanie MacGregor, and the two are married. A year later, Roy is happy with his wife and newborn child when his father appears, accompanied by an officer carrying a warrant that charges Roy with bigamy. To save himself from the penitentiary, Roy denies the marriage and deserts Jeanie. Jeanie follows her drunken husband, who falls from a cliff and dies. She then becomes a target for the hypocritical deacon who attempts to rally the villagers to drive her from town. The deacon is defeated by the appearance of Breeze, who produces proof of Jeanie's marriage and pledges his own love to her.
