A woman, rather a superwoman, the Baroness von Tanna, sacrifices her name--not of the best because she flirts--to save the good, nay, spotless reputation of her dearest friend, a millionaire's wife--who, in a "mad moment" (Aha!) becomes the beloved of a certain fascinating Max, a young and handsome ne'er-do-well. To add to the piquancy of the situation, the baroness, a beautiful woman, and not, like her friend, the mother of children, is entangled in the same net; she, too, adores Max the heart crusher, though she will not cross the Rubicon for his silly sake. The usual "triangle" becomes star-shaped, for a new feminine presence appears, a girl who is matched to marry the fatal Max. That makes five live wires; two husbands, two wives, a naive virgin, with Max as inaccessible as a star. But after a capital exposition, Sudermann gets us in a terrible state of mind by making the lady with the good reputation go off in a hysterical crisis, and almost confess to her stiff, severe husband--who is a maniac on the subject of his house being above suspicion. The charming, reckless baroness intervenes at the crucial point, becomes a lightning-rod that draws the electric current, and pretends to be the real culprit. Her husband, a sinister baron and ex-lieutenant in the Hussars, is present. A duel with Max is the result. In the last act, after she has been subjected to all kinds of ignominy, Baroness Dorrit von Tanna, without confessing, is socially rehabilitated. Skim-milk in this instance has passed for cream, the prudish millionaire's wife, her honour saved for the world at large, is now revealed as a hypocrite to her astounded and snobbish husband. The curtain falls on a maze of improbabilities, with the baroness in the centre.