“You think,” he said in a cruel hard voice, “you think your lover will not believe me. But I see upon your flesh a mark—a natural blemish that you cannot efface. Listen to me quietly. Hear me, or else I shall tell him of its existence, and urge him to discover whether or not I have spoken the truth. Perhaps he will then believe me!”
“You brute!” cried the girl in sudden and breathless horror. “You blackguard! you intend to ruin me in Frank’s eyes. Let me go, I say! Let me go.” Again she struggled, trying to get to the window, but with his strong arms encircling her she was helpless as a child, for with a sudden effort he flung her backwards upon the couch, inert and senseless.
Chapter Fifteen.
Reveals the Rivals.
Sir Felix Challas, Baronet the well-known financier and philanthropist, was seated in his cosy library in Berkeley Square, dictating letters to his secretary between the whiffs of his mild after-breakfast cigar. He was a man of middle age, with slight side whiskers, a reddish face, and opulent bearing. In his frock-coat, fancy vest, and striped trousers, and white spats over his boots, he presented the acmé of style as far as dress was concerned. The whole world knew Sir Felix to be something of a dandy, for he had never, for the past ten years or so, been seen without a flower in his buttonhole. Like many another man in London he had amassed great wealth from small beginnings, until he was now a power in the world of finance, and as a philanthropist his name was a household word.
From a small leather shop somewhere in the Mile End Road he had risen to be the controlling factor of several of the greatest financial undertakings in the country; while the house of Challas and Bowen in Austin Friars was known in the City as one of the highest possible standing.
Though he owned that fine house in Berkeley Square, a beautiful domain in Yorkshire which he had purchased from a bankrupt earl, a villa at Cannes, racehorses, motors, and a splendid steam-yacht, he was still a bachelor, and a somewhat lonely man.
The papers mentioned his doings daily, gave his portrait frequently, and recorded with a flourish of trumpets his latest donation to this charity, or to that. Though he made enormous profits in his financial deals, yet he was a staunch churchman, his hand ever in his pocket for the various institutions which approached him. Indeed, if the truth were told, he, like others, had bought his birthday Baronetcy by making a princely donation to the Hospital Fund. This showed him to be a shrewd man, fully alive to the value of judicious advertisement.