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!"