As Regina readies the house for her husband, her brothers taunt her about Horace's tardiness. On the trip home, Horace, suffering from a serious heart condition, is forced to rest at a hotel in Mobile to regain his strength, thus delaying his arrival. The next day on the way to the train station, Alexandra says goodbye to David Hewitt, a young newspaper man with whom she is infatuated. To lure Horace home, Regina orders Alexandra to travel to Baltimore and bring her father back. Oscar reluctantly agrees on the condition that a marriage between his shiftless son Leo and Alexandra be part of the deal. Ben settles the argument by offering his sister a forty-percent share, with the balance coming from Oscar's portion. Oscar then maliciously retorts that her invalid husband is less than eager to abandon the refuge of his hospital room in Baltimore for Regina's icy charms. Aware that her brothers need Horace's third to complete the deal, the rapacious Regina insists on a larger share of the venture. bank, to invest his money in the cotton mill. When Regina suddenly declares that she plans to move to Chicago with Alexandra, her brothers unceremoniously remind her that first she needs to convince her absent husband, Horace, the head of the Planters Trust Co. After an evening of listening to the brothers' blandishments, Marshall agrees to go into business with them, invites Regina to visit him in Chicago, then bids them goodnight. When the kind-hearted Birdie begins to chatter, Oscar cruelly accuses her of living in the past glory of her failed family fortune and once grand plantation. Gathered at the table to honor Marshall are Regina's sweet young daughter Alexandra, her greedy brothers, shopkeepers Ben and Oscar Hubbard, and Oscar's wife and son, Birdie and Leo. In the deep South of 1900, shrewish Regina Giddens readies her household in anticipation of a dinner to honor William Marshall, a wealthy Chicago industrialist who is thinking of building a cotton mill in their small town.
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