Part 11

“You can't ask her that until you know her so well that you can take a friend's liberty. Promise me you won't ask her until I myself tell you that you may! Promise!”

There was in his eyes a look of such intensity that young Wolfe was startled.

“Of course I'll promise.”

“You must make friends with her first. She must learn to like you--”

Francis Wolfe smiled a trifle fatuously. It was merely boyish. A little more, however, would have made the smile ungentlemanly. Jerningham continued, very earnestly:

“Listen, lad. She will have to do more than merely like you--she will have to trust you. And the only way to make a young and pretty woman trust a _young_ and not unattractive man is by having that man never, never, never fail in respect of her. He may be in love with her, or he may only pretend to be in love with her; but he must act as if he regarded her with such awe that he dare not make direct love to her. Do you get it?”

“Yes. But--”

“There is no but. She must first like you, which is not difficult; and then she must trust you as a true friend, which is, to say the least, a slower matter. Be a brother to her. Do you think you like me well enough to do this for me now?”

Jerningham looked at young Wolfe steadily--a man's look.

Frank said: “I'll do it gladly. And my sisters--”

“They must never know about--about Naida!” interrupted Jerningham, hastily.

“Of course not. But they will do anything for me--and for you, too!”

That is the true story of how it came about that Mrs. Ashton Welles was taken up by the Jack Burts; and how she met Francis Wolfe; and how Mrs. Stimson invited Mr. and Mrs. Ashton Welles to one of her old-fashioned and tiresome but famous and very formal dinners; and how Frank again took in Mrs. Welles. Thereafter they met often. At some of these dinners they met Jerningham.

The Klondiker paid his court to Mr. Welles. Indeed, he seemed to have for the president of the VanTwiller Trust Company an admiration that closely resembled the worship of a matinée girl for an actress like Maude Adams. It was an innocent sort of worship, but, nevertheless, not displeasing. In men it sometimes makes the worshiped feel paternally toward the worshiper.

Jerningham developed a habit of going every day to the trust company; and he made it a point always to see Ashton Welles, if only to shake hands. One morning he told Mr. Welles he desired advice about an investment. Jerningham, it must be remembered, had on deposit with the trust company over a million dollars, and there were six or seven millions in gold-dust in the company's vault.

“Mr. Welles, I--I,” said the Klondiker, so earnestly that he stammered--“I should like to buy some VanTwiller Trust Company stock, to have and to hold as long as you are president.”

There was in Jemingham's eyes a look of that admiration that best expresses itself in absolute confidence in the infallibility of a very great man. Welles was a very cold man; but flattery has rays that will thaw icebergs.

Welles nearly blushed and smiled one of his politely deprecating smiles--as if he were apologizing for smiling--and said:

“Why, Mr. Jemingham, I'll confess to you that I myself think well of that stock. I guess we'll keep on paying dividends.”

Jemingham smiled delightedly--the king had jested! Then he said:

“I'll buy as much as I can, but I don't want to put up the price on myself. Who can give me pointers on how to pick up the stock quietly? Do you think I should see Mr. Barrows or Mr. Stewardson?”

He looked so anxiously at Mr. Welles that Mr. Welles said, kindly:

“Oh, see Stewardson. I'll speak to him, if you wish.”

“Thank you! Thank you, Mr. Welles,” said Jer-ningham, so gratefully that Welles felt like a philanthropist as he rang the bell to summon the second vice-president.

“Mr. Stewardson, Mr. Jemingham, wants to buy some of our stock. I want you to help him in any way possible.”

“Delighted, I'm sure!” said the vice-president, very cordially. He was paid to be cordial to customers.

“If I had my way I'd be the largest individual stockholder,” said Jerningham, looking at Welles almost adoringly.

“I hope you will,” said Welles, pleasantly. “Mr. Stewardson will help you.”

Jerningham and Welles shook hands. Then Jerningham and Stewardson left to go to the vice-president's private office.

VII

The remarkable Miss Keogh was one of those remarkable people who are really remarkable. Within three weeks came a cablegram from her to Mr. Jerningham to the effect that a letter had been sent by Mrs. Deering to her daughter--the first. Mrs. Deering had begun to doubt her own health. Then came cablegrams from her to Mrs. Welles; and in a few days, before Ashton Welles could think of a valid excuse for not letting his wife go to England, Mrs. Welles told him to engage passage for her on the _Ruritania_.

It was very unfortunate that he could not accompany her; but the annual meeting was only three weeks away, and the minority, never strong enough to do real damage, always was devilish enough to be very disagreeable to the clique in control. Ashton Welles, after the extremely stupid fashion of all strong men, had always kept the absolute control of the company's affairs in his own hands. It was the one thing he refused to share with his subordinates. He was a czar in his office. He was, in reality, the trust company--or he so believed and so he made others believe. His vice-presidents were merely highly paid office-boys, according to the gossip of the Street, which was not so far out of the way in this particular instance.

Ten minutes after Mrs. Ashton Welles engaged Suite D on the _Ruritania_, due to sail on the following day, Jerningham said to Mr. Francis Wolfe:

“My boy, I should like you to go to London on business for me--and for yourself. You've got to represent me in a deal with the Arctic Venture Corporation. You will have my power of attorney and you will sign the deed for one of my properties, as soon as they have deposited two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to my credit in Parr's Bank. And also you will call on the prettiest girl in the world--the prettiest, do you hear?--who unfortunately is also the brightest and cleverest. Her name--” He paused and looked at Francis Wolfe meditatively, almost hesitatingly.

“Go on!” implored Francis Wolfe.

“Her name is Kathryn Keogh and she is stopping at Thornton's Hotel. She will help you find Naida. Miss Keogh is a friend of Mrs. Deering.”

“She is Irish--eh?” asked Frank.

“Mrs. Deering?”

“No; the peach--the--Miss Keogh?”

“She is of the Waterford Keoghs, famous for their eyes and their complexions. But business first. You are not to fall in love with Miss Keogh until after my two hundred and fifty thousand pounds are safe in bank. I'd go myself, but I have a still bigger deal on here in New York. I've taken the liberty to engage a stateroom on the _Ruritania_, sailing tomorrow, and a letter of credit has been ordered for five thousand dollars. Have I taken too much for granted?”

“No; but you know perfectly well that I don't know a thing about business, and I'd be afraid--”

“My solicitors in London will call on you when they are ready for you. I shall give you a memorandum for your own conduct; you will find there instructions in detail--just as though you were a ten year-old boy; but that is really for your own protection, and I don't mean to imply that your mind is ten years old--”

“No feelings hurt,” said Frank, who in reality was much relieved to learn that the chances of his making a mistake had been intelligently minimized.

“I'm glad you take it that way. Now we'll go down-town to Towne, Ripley & Co. and give them your signature for the letter of credit; from there we'll go to the British Consulate and have my own signature on my power of attorney certified to by the consul, and then you can skip up-town and say good-by to your friends.”

Frank left Jerningham at the consulate and went home to pack up and arrange for his more pressing adieus. Jerningham went into a public telephone-booth and called up the offices of _Society Folk_. When they answered he asked to speak with the editor.

“Well?” presently came in a sharp voice.

“This is Mr.--er--a friend.”

“Anonymous! All right. What do you want?”

“To give you a piece of news.”

“We verify everything and take your word for absolutely nothing. I tell you this to save your telling me a lie.”

“That's all right. You'll find it true enough. I--”

“One minute. Where is that pencil? All right! Now the name of the woman?”

“How do you know I want to--”

“All you fellows always do. What's her name?”

“Mrs. Ashton Welles.”

“The wife of the president of the VanTwiller--”

“Correct!” said Jerningham.

“Now the name of the man?”

“Francis Wolfe,” answered Jerningham, unhesitatingly.

“The chorus-girls' pet?” asked the voice.

“The same!”

“Has it happened yet? Or do you merely fear it? Or is it a case of hoping?”

“I don't know what you are driving at.”

“Then you don't read _Society Folk_”

“Well, I don't--regularly. All I know is that Frank has been very assiduous in his attentions lately. He's shaken the Great White Way and hasn't been in a lobster-palace in two months. He and Mrs. Ashton Welles are sailing on the _Ruritania_ tomorrow.”

“Under what name?”

“Their own.”

“Thank you, kind friend. Thank you!”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because we can now use names. Does Mr. Welles also go?”

“Of course not!”

“Excuse me for asking such a silly question. What other crime has he committed besides being old?--I mean Mr. Welles.”

“Stupidity is worse than criminal.”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“When does your paper come out?”

“Day after to-morrow. Much obliged. You are a friend in need. Don't ring off yet. Listen! You are also a dirty, low-lived, sneaking, cowardly dog, and a general, all-round, unrelieved, monumental--” It was the one way the editor had of showing that he was better than his anonymous contributor.

Jerningham, of course, went on board the _Ruritania_ to see Frank off. Ashton Welles was also there to say good-by to his young and beautiful wife. It was their first separation, and Welles did not like it. He seemed to feel her absence in advance; it was really that, as the hour drew near, he realized more vividly how lonely she would leave him! They have a saying in Spain that a man may grow accustomed to bearing sorrow, but that nobody can get used to that happiness which comes merely to disappear immediately after. A cigar manufacturer from Havana had once quoted this to Ashton Welles, and Ashton Welles was impressed less by the saying than by the fact that the Spaniard was so serious about it. But now he remembered it.

He was very uncomfortable and this discomfort made his mental machinery act queerly; it seemed to tint his thoughts with strange, unusual hues that made them almost morbid. He would have felt contempt for his own weakness had he not been so full of half-angry regret at being left alone in New York--this man who never had possessed an intimate friend; who not even as a boy had a chum!

Of course it was only a coincidence that young Mr. Francis Wolfe was to be young Mrs. Ashton Welles's fellow-passenger; and it was also a coincidence that Mr. Wolfe's stateroom was just across the passageway from Mrs. Welles's suite. Indeed, neither of the young people had picked out the cabins--but there they were. And there, in Ashton Welles's mind, was another unformulated unpleasantness.

Frank's sisters were so proud Frank was going to put through an important business deal that they showed it. But if they were glad that Mrs. Welles was also going they did not show it. They recalled Frank's desire to meet the pretty young matron whose husband was thirty years older, and they were rather ostentatiously polite to her. Ashton Welles, in his disturbed state of mind, somehow felt that the attitude of Mrs. John Burt and Mrs. Sydney Walsingham was one of blame-fixing; but he could not definitely understand why there should be any blame to fix! He dismissed his semi-suspicions with the thought that women had petty minds. His wife was very pretty and Wolfe's sisters were not as young as they used to be. And youth is a terrible thing--to lose! It is hard to forgive youth for being, after one is past--well, say, past a certain age. And to prove that he himself had nothing to fear--absolutely nothing--he even smiled and said to young Mr. Wolfe:

“I feel certain, of course, that if Mrs. Welles should need anything--”

It was the season of the year when east-bound liners carried few passengers. The young people were bound to be thrown together a great deal.

“Of course, Mr. Welles. Only too delighted, I'm sure!” said Frank, very eagerly.

He was a fine-looking chap, with that wonderfully clean, healthy pink complexion which suggests a clean and healthy mind. His eyes were full of that eager, boyish light that makes the possessors thereof so nice to pet, small-child wise.

Ashton Welles received an impression of Frank Wolfe's face that was photographic in its details.

The floating hotel moved off slowly. Ashton Welles, on the pier, watched the fluttering handkerchief of his wife out of sight. He had the remembrance of her beautiful young face framed in Siberian sable to cheer him. She certainly looked heavenly. She had cried at leaving him. She had waved away at him vehemently, and there was the unpleasant suggestion that always attends such leave-takings--that the parting was forever. A frail thing--human life! A little speck of vitality on the boundless waste of grim, gray waters! And she seemed so sorry to go away from him! And she waved and waved, as if she, also, feared she might never see him again! And Francis Wolfe stood beside her, very close to her, and waved also--to Jemingham, who stood beside Ashton Welles.

Ashton Welles accepted Jerningham's invitation and rode to his office in the Klondiker's sumptuous motor in the Klondiker's company. Ashton Welles looked at the flower-holder. Instead of the white azaleas he saw two white handkerchiefs waved by two young people.

“You are very friendly with young Wolfe?” said Ashton Welles, carelessly inquisitive--merely to make talk, you know. All rich old men who marry young women have ostrich habits. They put an end to danger by closing their eyes to the obvious. That is why they always discover nothing.

“Rather--yes. I think he is a fine chap--one of those clean-cut Americans of the present generation that European women find so perfectly fascinating.”

Ashton Welles instantly frowned--and instantly ceased to frown.

“Yes,” he said, and grimaced, thinking it looked like a smile. “What business is taking him to London? I thought he was a young man of--er--elegant leisure.”

“He was that until very recently; but he has turned over a new leaf. He has forsworn his old and, I suppose, rather disreputable companions. I find him rather serious.”

“What has changed him?” Ashton Welles was foolish enough to be brave enough to ask. When a question can have two answers--one of them disagreeable--it is folly to ask it.

“I don't know,” answered Jerningham, as if puzzled. “He has acted a little queerly and secretive-like; but it is, I admit, a queerness that other young men would do well to imitate, for it has made him cease drinking, and cease--er--you know. I rather suspect it is his sister, Mrs. Burt. He is very fond of her. A man will do things for a good woman that he won't for his best man friend, or for his own sake. You saw him. There is no viciousness or dissipation in that face. Damned handsome chap, I call him!”

“H'm!” winced the glacial Ashton Welles. He could not help it.

There came upon him a strange mood, almost of numbness, that made him silent against his will. He answered by nods--the nods of a man who does not hear--to Jerningham's chatter. He gathered in some way that the Alaskan Monte Cristo was talking of buying VanTwiller Trust Company stock, and that he would ask Stewardson how much he could borrow on the stock.

“Yes--do!” said Ashton Welles as the motor stopped in front of the imposing entrance of the trust company's marble building.

They stepped out; Welles excused himself almost brusquely and went into his own private office to think all the thoughts that a millionaire of fifty-two thinks when he thinks that he married at fifty a girl thirty years his junior, with cheeks like flower petals and eyes like skies, who is going to spend the best part of a week on a steamer in the company of a man who is much worse than handsome--young!

Mr. Jerningham, who did not seem to have noticed the near rudeness of Mr. Ashton Welles, promptly sought the second vice-president and asked how much the company would lend on its own stock.

“It is against the law for us to lend money on our own stock,” said the vice-president, who did not add that this provision had prevented many an inside clique from eating its pie and having it too.

“Will the banks loan money on V.T. stock?” asked Jerningham. He had already bought three thousand shares at an average of four hundred dollars a share.

“Well, I guess so.”

“On a time loan?”

“No trouble in borrowing three hundred dollars a share, I should say.”

“That is not much,” objected Jerningham.

“No, it isn't. But--May I ask you a question?”

“Two if you wish,” said Jerningham, with one of his likable smiles.

“Why should you need to borrow a trifle, with all the millions in gold you have down-stairs? Or are they only gold bricks you've got in your boxes?”

This was, of course, meant in jest; but Stewardson thought in a flash the trust company did not know for a positive fact that Jerningham's iron-bound and wax-sealed boxes had real gold-dust in them.

“Let me tell you something, Mr. Stewardson,” said Jerningham, with that curious earnestness people assume when they discuss matters they do not really understand--“let me tell you this: The time is coming--and coming within a few months!--when good, hard gold is going to command a premium just as it practically did during the Bryan free-silver scare in 1896. I am going to save mine. I want to have it in readiness to take advantage of--”

“But present conditions are utterly different--”

“They are always different--and yet the panics come! You thought that after 1896 there would never again be any need for clearing-house certificates; and yet, in 1907--”

“They were unnecessary--” began Stewardson, hotly.

He had been left out of all conferences among the powers at that trying time, and naturally disapproved their actions.

“But they happened, just the same! I know myself. If I cash in now I'll buy something with the money. I don't want to buy now. No, sir! If I should happen to need a million or two I prefer to borrow it for a few weeks until my next shipment comes in. There will be two millions coming in about the middle of next month. I've sent word to get out as big an output as possible. See? You bet your boots Wall Street is not going to get either my cash or my mines, as they did Colonel Cannon's. You know he was The Mexican copper king' one day and That jackass from Chihuahua' the next! See?”

The vice-president looked at him and said “I see!” in a very flattering tone of voice; but in his inmost mind he was thinking that such a thing was precisely what doubtless would happen to Mr. Alfred Jemingham, late of Nome. It is always the extremely suspicious, too-smart-for-you-by-heck! farmer who buys the biggest gold brick.

“They'll find out I'll never let them change my name into That blankety-blank-blank from Alaska!'” And Jemingham put on that look of devilish astuteness that buyers of stocks always put on when they buy at top prices.

He left the vice-president of the VanTwiller Trust Company and called on the vice-presidents of several other trust companies and banks, and found out that he could borrow, more than three hundred dollars a share on his V.T. stock. And he did--then and there. He impressed the genial philanthropists on whom he called as being a child of Nature--a great big boy playing at being a financier. There was in consequence much smacking of financial lips. It was morsels like this naïve and honest Alaskan miner with the millions that helped to reconcile men to living the Wall Street life.

VIII

On the day after the _Ruritania_ sailed Ashton Welles, whose first wifeless evening at home had not been pleasant, found on his desk a marked copy of _Society Folk_. These were the four marked paragraphs:

The man who first said there was no fool like an old fool had in mind that form of folly which consists of the purchase of a beautiful girl by a man who endeavors to span a difference of thirty years in age by means of a bridge of solid gold. It is unnatural, unwholesome, and even immoral. The sordid romances of high life that begin in a Fifth Avenue jewelry-shop are apt to end in a Reno divorce-mill. Why shouldn't they?

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!