"Two?" queried Mr. Leslie sharply.
"One's dead," replied Blake with simple gravity.
"H'm. I—it's possible I've misjudged you in some things. But this question of drink—I'll risk backing you in a business way, if it costs me a million. I owe you that much. But I won't risk my daughter's happiness—supposing you had so much as a shadow of a chance of winning her. No! You saved her life. You shall have no chance whatever to make her miserable. But I'll give you opportunities—I'll put you on the road to making your own millions."
Blake raised his cigar and flecked off the ash. "That for your damned millions!" he swore.
Mr. Leslie stared and muttered to himself: "Might have known it! Man of that kind. Crazy fool!"
"Fool?" repeated Blake contemptuously. "Just because money is your god, you needn't think it's everybody else's. You—money—hog! You think I'd sell out my chance of winning her!"
"You have no chance, sir! The thought of such a thing is absurd—ridiculous!"
"Well, then, why don't you laugh? No; you hear me. If I knew I didn't have one chance in a million, I'd tell you to take your offer and—"
"Now, now! make no rash statements. I'm offering you, to begin with, a twenty-five-thousand-dollar position, and your chance to acquire a fortune, if you—"
Blake's smouldering anger flared out in white heat. "Think you can bribe me, do you? Well, you can just take your positions and your dollars, and go clean, plumb to hell!"