Mrs. Angela Quixtus, wife of Ephraim Quixtus. a rich, congenial and gullible businessman of London, agrees to pass an amorous letter from Will Hammersley to Nora Duglade, an unhappy married woman, and because of the unannounced entry of Quixtus into the room the letter is hastily thrown into a drawer of Mrs. Quixtus’s desk. She forgets it, and subsequently, after her demise, it remains undelivered. Meanwhile, Will Hammersley leaves for India in order that Nora’s husband’s suspicions might not be aroused. Quixtus, now a widower and always a good spender, gives a weekly dinner to three ne’er-do-wells, and at one of these parties he hears them talking ill of him behind his back. Simultaneously, he receives a letter from the absconding junior member of the firm to the effect that the firm has been disgraced. As the last straw, he finds the letter to Nora Duglade in his wife’s desk and he is overcome. The letter is addressed to “My darling” and written so that Quixtus believes it to be a letter to his wife from Hammersley. The ne’er-do-wells are expelled from his good grace, and they evolve a scheme with the fascinating Mrs. Fontaine, by which they expect to get some of Quixtus’s money. Quixtus is a friend of Clementina Wing, an eccentric but successful artist, who watches jealously over him, although she does not evidence her feeling for him. She is advised to take a trip to France for her health, and she takes Tommy along with her, hoping to get Etta Concannon. with whom he is in love, to join the party later. The party goes to France, and it is in Paris that Clementina meets Quixtus. Huckaby, one of the ne’er-do-wells, and Mrs. Fontaine, Quixtus having gone to France to attend a congress of a society of which he was the London president. The meeting between Quixtus and Mrs. Fontaine, prearranged of course, by the plotters, was seemingly “by chance.” Clementina treats the plotters with an air of indifference bordering on disdain, and takes Ouixtus out of the hotel to Marseilles, where Hammersley is dying. After his death, Quixtus and Clementina take Sheila, Will’s child, and harbor her. A letter is found in the desk of Hammersley, which is signed by Nora Duglade, clearing up the original letter found in Quixtus’s wife’s desk. After the return to London. Clementina is directed to design the dinner decorations for an affair to be given in honor of Etta and Tommy. Mrs. Fontaine is invited, and, in the midst of the brilliant affair, Clementina, the erstwhile eccentric artist, appears, exquisitely gowned. Quixtus, as well as everyone else, is blinded by her radiance and surprised at the wonderful transformation. Mrs. Fontaine is in the shade from then on. Quixtus and Clementina then come to an understanding and Quixtus is permanently saved from the clutches of the vampire, Mrs. Fontaine.