She was a doll--beautiful and utterly useless; but it was this very uselessness that made Ashton Welles worship her. This financier, who in his office was not only a skilful bargain-driver, but preached and practised the religion of efficiency, in his home plunged into an orgy of utterly juvenile lovemaking. He reveled in his wooing, which he had to do after his marriage. He did not merely desire to have a wife--he must have a wife of an extreme femininity; she must be one of those womanly women who exist only in the imaginations of men of a tyrannical cast of mind. His life having been for years exclusively a money-making life, he became very selfish. And he continued to find his greatest pleasure in pleasing himself--only that he now best pleased himself by being a boy sweetheart; by achieving his puppy love at fifty and deeming it marvelously rejuvenating and therefore altogether admirable. Very well! Now imagine that man, living for two years amid those pitifully evanescent illusions so cherished by middle-aged men of money who marry very young women of looks--imagine that man suddenly informed that he is no longer to be anything but an old man! And not only old, but deserted! Imagine that selfsame man brought face to face with the invincible Opponent of all old men--youth! To Ashton Welles, sitting in his office, surrounded by glittering millions, there came the deadly chill of age--doubly cold from being surrounded by gold. In the twinkling of an eye all young men suddenly became redoubtable warriors, love-conquerors, irresistible as a force of nature--and as heartless! He was beaten by the universal victor--Time! He stared fixedly at a photograph of his wife in an elaborately chased silver frame, but he did not see her. He saw ruins, as of a conflagration--the smoking débris of a destroyed home; and heaps of ashes--ashes everywhere! And in the rising puffs of smoke he saw faces of men--of young men--of very handsome young men! Stewardson, the vice-president, walked in--the door was open, as usual. He saw his chief's face and was shocked into a quite human feeling of consternation. “Great heavens, Mr. Welles, what is the matter?” “Nothing!” said Ashton Welles. He suddenly felt an overwhelming impulse to hide his face from the sight of his fellow-men. He thought his forehead must show in black letters--_Fool!_ and--and--and ten thousand terrible legends that changed with each beat of his heart, and told what he had been and what had happened; and--yes--what was bound to happen! “Nothing! Nothing!” he repeated, fiercely. “Nothing, I tell you!” He was certain all the world knew his disgrace. “Shall I call a doctor?” “No! No!” he snarled. Call in the entire world and gloat at his discomfiture? He glanced at the vice-president. The impolitic alarm on Steward-son's face exasperated him. “What do you want? Damn it, what do you want?” It was almost a shriek.