Zonnetje

Summary

When Joy, the daughter of the actress Gloria Grey, is six years old, her mother realises that the theatrical life is contaminating the child. She confides in Mark Halliday, an actor who has helped her in the past and who proposes marriage. She tells him that she is still married and - in a series of flash-backs - relates her story. As a chorus girl, she meets Tom, the impulsive, hot-headed, younger son of Sir John Chelmsford, and falls in love with him. When Tom marries her, in defiance of his father, he is disowned. For a time Gloria and Tom are happy, but when their money runs out he is unable to face poverty, and leaves her. Gloria returns to the theatre, where some months later she is surprised by a call from her husband's elder brother, Robert, with a message from Tom, now in Canada, saying that she must take divorce proceedings and forget him. Robert, struck by the young woman's simplicity, begs her to come to him if ever she needs help. The arrival of baby Joy is an additional anxiety for Gloria. Six years later, Gloria, remembering Robert's offer, writes and asks him if he can take care of Joy until she herself is able to make a proper home for the child, her only request being that Tom is not to be told of his child's existence. In the aristocratic household, Joy, despite her many pranks and amusing ways, succeeds in reuniting Robert and his butterfly wife. She also completely wins the heart of stubborn old Sir John and persuades him to send for his erring boy Tom who, with the Canadian Mounted Police, has found his manhood. Father and son are reconciled. Tom comes to love Joy, not knowing that she is his daughter. On the opening night of Gloria's first appearance in London, Tom takes Joy to the theatre. There Joy is the means of bringing her mother and her newly discovered father into a happy reunion.