A girl who marries once for money is always ready to marry again for more money—or for more love—for she always wants more than the desiccated ass who first bought her can give her.
A girl of twenty who is famous for her good looks is always a beautiful young woman, no matter what else she may be. But a man close to sixty, whether he is the head of a big trust company or a poet, is nothing but an old man. Speaking of remarkable coincidences, is it not odd that both Fool and Financier should begin with an F? And Frailty, too, whose other name is Woman?
If there are some things that gold cannot do it is perfectly wonderful how many things love can do! It bridges all chasms with kisses, and solves all riddles—with glances. It even defies the high cost of living and makes men think themselves demigods. It has been known to make champagne drunkards swear off long before they are bankrupt. It even now depopulates the lobster-palaces. It turns dining-room navigators into fearless vikings, braving the wild Atlantic and its midwinter gales in order to be by their lady-loves. It may even reform Tammany leaders—for we know it can transform young asses into handsome Lancelots.
Among the passengers on the Ruritania, sailing for Liverpool at this unfashionable season of the year, were Mrs. Ashton Welles, who has the gorgeous Suite D all to herself, and young Mr. Francis Wolfe, who is content with the more modest stateroom across the way. Frank's friends are always singing his praises these days. He never looks at a chorus-girl save from the middle of the house, and has not taken anything stronger than Vichy in long weeks. If we were not averse to advertising male beauty shows we would remark that young Wolfe is the handsomest bachelorus-girl save from the middle of the house, and has not taken anything stronger than Vichy in long weeks. If we were not averse to advertising male beauty shows we would remark that young Wolfe is the handsomest bachelor who ever sidestepped matrimony.
It takes more than money to keep the Wolfe from the door—eh? What?
The Ashton Welles who finished reading the beastly paragraphs of Society Folk was not the same Ashton Welles who began them. He was no longer an efficient financier, but a man benumbed, whose brain had turned to plaster of Paris. His mind at once lost all elasticity, all power to functionate. And, since he could not think, he could not act. That wonderful world, which financially successful people create for themselves with so much pride, tumbled about his ears. Out of the chaos made by a few printed words, only one thing was certain—he suffered!
Men are always wounded in a vital spot when they are wounded by jealousy, and Ashton Welles was particularly vulnerable because he lived in only two places—his office and his home. He did not have other houses of refuge to which his soul could retreat—like music or literature or art—in case of need. He had been so busy winning success that he had not had time for anything else. He had worked for the aggrandizement of the personal fortune of Ashton Welles. When circumstances and that reputation for luck, shrewdness, and caution, which is in itself a golden sagacity, finally placed him, still a young man, at the head of the VanTwiller Trust Company, David Soulett, one of the directors, remarked: “Welles has married the company; but we don't yet know whether he is to be the company's husband or whether the company is to be his wife!” And a fellow-director, who had been in profitable deals with Welles, retorted, “Well, I call it an ideal match!”
Welles brought to the company what it needed and the presidency brought to Welles many opportunities—none of which he neglected. He saw the deposits increase tenfold—and his own fortune twentyfold. What might not have been politic in an individual playing a lone hand was altogether admirable in the head of a financial institution—his cold-bloodedness, for example, and the dehumanized attitude toward life habitually assumed by the principal cog-wheel in that intricate aggregation of cog-wheels known as a modern trust company. Being an excellent money-lender, he was an uninteresting human being. You lose much when you win money—for gold is hard and cold, and the enjoyment of life calls for softness and warmth. It is the appalling revenge capital takes on its self-called masters.
As he approached his fiftieth year Welles began to find that his isolation might be splendid, but that it was also damnably uncomfortable. Did you know that in certain millionaire households, where everything always runs very smoothly, the master gets to long for a burnt steak or the spilling of soup by the very competent servant? Welles, accustomed to the wonderfully comfortable life of a very rich bachelor in New York, desired a home where everything need not be so comfortable. And as his fortune became a matter of several millions it began—as swollen fortunes always do, also in revenge!—to take on the aspect of a monument, something to admire during the monument-builder's lifetime and to endure impressively afterward! With the desire of permanence came the dream of all capitalists that makes them dynasts of gold—an heir to extend the boundaries of the family fortune! It was inevitable that Ashton Welles should grow to believe that, though the trust company's deposits were in other people's names, they really belonged to Ashton Welles, because they were merely the marble blocks of the Welles monument. The name of Welles must never cease to be identified with the work of Ashton the First!
Wherefore the need of an heir became almost an obsession with him, and with it came a quite human dissatisfaction with hotels and clubs, and trained nurses in times of illness. When a capitalist realizes clearly that, apart from his money-lending capacity, he has absolutely no power to bring tears to human eyes, he grows jealous of his own money. He wishes to be feared, though penniless, just as he would be loved, though a pauper. All these desires combined to force Ashton Welles into a decision. He had kept up a desultory sort of friendship with Mrs. Deering, the widow of his predecessor in the presidency of the trust company, and Anne Deering was the girl he knew best of all—though he really did not know her at all.