The Reason Why [antikvár]

THE REASON WHY CHAPTER I People often wondered from what nation the great financier, Francis Markrute, originally sprang. He was now a naturalised Englishman, and he looked English enough. He was slight and fair, and had an immaculately groomed appearance which even the best of valets cannot always produce. He wore his clothes with that quiet, unconscious air which is the peculiar gift of Englishmen. He had no perceptible accent—only a deliberate way of speaking. But Markrute !—such a name might have come from anywhere. No one knew anything about him, except that he was fabulously rich, and had descended upon London some ten years previously from Paris, or Berlin, or Vienna, and had immediately become a power in the city, and within a year or so had grown to be omnipotent in certain circles. He had a wonderfully appointed house in Park Lane—one of those smaller ones just at the turo out of Grosvenor Street, and there he entertained in a reserved fashion. It had been remarked by one or two people who had time to think—a rare case in these days—that he had never made a disadvantageous friend, from i a