Charles Goddard, publication date obscure, read as an e-book reformatting of Project Gutenberg Text

I’d heard the title used metaphorically many times, but knew nothing beyond the reference. In all likelihood, the reference wasn’t to the book, but to the “cliff-hanger” movie serials made from the book starting around 1914, and known particularly for the image of the hero rescuing the heroine who had been abandoned, bound hand and foot, upon the tracks before a rapidly approaching train. This scene does not appear in the book, but fear not, the book is no more subtle.
In the world of Pauline, the extremely wealthy are pure and meritorious, the poor are dark, dishonest, and immoral. Motor cars, airplanes, submarines, purebred horses, and hot-air balloons are all tools for the amusement of the thrill-seeking elite, although the commoners who operate them often pay with their lives in order to propel the plot along. Thin as the plot may be, it’s enough to take our heroine to other exotic locales, where she and her handsome foster-brother/husband-to-be [!] vanquish still other niedermenschen, whether they be Sioux Indians who mistake her for a goddess, gypsies who wish to kill her, the denizens of Chinatown who would trap her in their opium dens, or sinister agents of un-named countries who would do her in just for the hell of it.