A SUCCESSFUL SPECULATION AND ITS RESULT
Lynton Hora felt that Fate had dealt generously with him when it
made Captain Marven the bearer of the despatch case which Guy had
so ingeniously rifled of its secrets. Guy's success had supplied
him with all the information necessary to bring off a magnificent
coup on the Stock Exchange. He had speculated heavily for the fall
in the securities of both countries. He knew that publication of
the information he had in his possession would make his operation
successful. He had not scrupled to publish that information, though its
disclosure before its discussion between the chancelleries of the two
nations concerned brought two great powers to the verge of war.
It found its way into the newspapers, and while the press of two
countries breathed defiance, Hora laughed in his sleeve, cynically
declaring that no farce is equal to the farce of civilisation, since
nations are as ready to fly at each other's throats as any street
curs. And while the newspapers snarled and patriots in beer houses and
at street corners sang national anthems, Hora watched the prices of
securities, and when the crisis reached its acutest stage, he bought
in his bear and found himself possessed of what to the majority of men
would have been a sufficient provision against the future.
But Guy's successful action had done more than lead to the swift
accumulation of a fortune. Hora had not for a moment anticipated the
long arm of coincidence would be stretched to such purpose as to make
the father the bearer of the despatches which the son had stolen. It
was the crowning stone in the carefully built arch which was to bear
the superstructure of his revenge.
Hora felt almost superstitiously inclined regarding the coincidence.
He did not learn of the identity of the messenger until Guy's return
from Lynn, and, as soon as it was made known to him, he saw how the
fact could be made to serve his purpose. Naturally he said nothing of
that ulterior purpose to either Guy or to Myra. He was merely full of
praises for his pupil. He declared himself to be so satisfied that
he expressed his intention of making the young man master of his own
actions for the future. "You have enabled me to provide for myself,
Guy," he said. "It is now my turn to provide for you, so that if at any
time you desire to retire from your profession you will be at liberty
to do so."
Guy had ridiculed the suggestion, but Hora had insisted. "Who knows
what may happen in the future," he said. "It will be well for you to
have money at your own disposal. You may quarrel with me. To-day sons
always quarrel with their fathers. Sometimes they rob them, and if
fathers were wise they would always see that their sons are spared the
necessity."
Guy laughed. He felt that he was not of the commonplace world of sons
who robbed their fathers, but he gave way to Hora's whim. He instructed
a broker on his own account, though the operation was not in his own
name. Hora had suggested that it would be just as well if for the
occasion Guy borrowed another surname. So the letter of introduction
he forwarded to Hora's broker introduced "my young friend Guy Marven,
upon whose information I am acting, and who, wishing to speculate on
his own account, I am prepared to guarantee up to £10,000." Accordingly
it was as Guy Marven that he signed in due course the transfer notes of
stock which came to hand, and it was with the name of Guy Marven that
he endorsed the cheque which he paid into his own banking account as
the result of the speculation.
He had wondered that Hora should have selected the name of Marven and
had even suggested the inadvisability of making use of it since Jones,
Brown, or Robinson would have been equally useful if the necessity
existed to use another than his own. To him it seemed that the use of
the name Marven might excite remark. "Exactly why I wish you to use
it," Hora had answered. "If anyone who was aware that Marven carried
those despatches should hear that a Marven had been speculating for
the fall, it would not be remarkable if they should arrive at the
conclusion that he had looked inside his case himself."
"That seems rather rough on Captain Marven," remarked Guy. It seemed a
mean deed, and Hora had not trained him to take delight in mean deeds.
"Isn't he my enemy, and therefore yours? You have no reason, I suppose,
for treating him with more consideration than all the rest of the
world?" demanded Hora.
Guy did not answer. He was tempted to reply with a direct
"no," but he had never yet lied to Hora. Yet he could not
bring himself to confide to the Commandatore the reason why
he would have extended consideration to Captain Marven.
He had no wish to hear the Commandatore's biting
cynicisms applied personally to Meriel. The idea seemed sacrilegious.
He was relieved to find that Hora made no comment on this silence. But
the Commandatore had not failed to observe it, and remembering at the
same time how Guy had nearly let slip the opportunity for securing
the Greuze in the seductive companionship of these same "pleasant
people," he realised that the time had come for him to discover what
the attraction was. Of course he guessed. The miniature set in the
snuff-box which Guy had expressed a desire to retain had not escaped
his notice.
"The inevitable feminine," he said sneeringly to himself. But he knew
that the inevitable feminine has always to be reckoned with where a
young man is concerned, and generally where an old man is concerned
also. It behooved him to know something of this new factor, which might
materially affect his plans. But Guy must have no suspicion that he
was under observation. Hora's mind jumped to an expedient whereby his
object would be secured without subjecting himself to inconvenience. He
determined to make the suggestion which had occurred to him forthwith.
"There's another matter which I have been giving thought to, Guy. Don't
you think that it is about time you took some chambers for yourself?"
Guy was more than startled by the suggestion thus sprung upon him. He
had always been left such perfect freedom that there had never been the
slightest temptation in the thought of possessing a domicile of his own.
"Why, Commandatore?" he asked. "I am perfectly comfortable at home
here."
"You will always be at home here, I hope," replied Hora,
"but at the same time there is much to be said in favour of the course
I am proposing. Now listen, Guy. I will say nothing of the extra
freedom which will be yours."
"I could not have more than I enjoy at present," remarked Guy.
Hora shrugged his shoulders. "Men are men," he said. "You may be having
visitors who might hardly like to come here. Eh?"
Guy smiled.
"I see it is possible," continued Hora, smiling in his turn. "Then
there are others whom I might not wish to meet. The men of your own
years with whom you mix, with whom you must mix if you are to keep your
position, will probably be often dropping in on you. I am getting of an
age, Guy, when I might find their presence, I will not say distasteful,
but just a little wearisome. At chambers of your own you will be much
freer in that respect."
"There are my clubs," objected Guy.
Hora waved the objection aside.
"Then there is the additional reason of our joint safety to be
considered," continued Hora meditatively. "It seems to me that if you
are located in a place of your own we shall be provided with another
strategic centre from which to carry on operations. You see it might be
important for the safety of both or either of us that we should not be
living under the same roof."
"Certainly, I see your point there," replied Guy, and he became
thoughtful.
"Think it over, Guy," said Hora, and he left the young man.
Guy thought it over, and was surprised when he did so that the idea
proved so attractive. It was not that he was ungrateful. He could not
believe that the daily companionship of Hora was becoming distasteful,
and yet there was certainly relief in the thought that he should be
apart from the man whom he called father. How greatly this thought was
due to the impression that Meriel Challys had produced upon him he did
not appreciate, but the knowledge that if he were settled in a home of
his own he might perhaps escape taking part in any plans for revenge
which Hora might be weaving about Captain Marven, was certainly a
powerful consideration.
When, therefore, Hora broached the subject again after dinner that
night, Guy was quite prepared, nay, even eager, to fall in with his
views. Hora was more than ever convinced that some unknown factor was
influencing his adopted son.
The only voice raised in protest was Myra's.
"You--you are going away? Why?" she asked.
There was a tremor in her voice which made Hora intervene hastily.
"It is my wish, Myra," he said. The woman shivered at the menace of his
tone. But it produced the result Hora desired. She quelled the emotion
that struggled for utterance, and listened in silence while Hora
reiterated the reasons which he had already given to Guy.
But though dumbly acquiescent she did not believe in Hora's statement
as to the motives which animated him, and when, after Guy had left
them, she was alone with Hora, she returned again to the subject.
"Why are you sending Guy away?" she asked. "Is it to
avert danger from yourself?" There was scorn in her
tone. Hora made no attempt to avert the threatened emotional storm.
"Have I ever feared danger?" he asked sneeringly.
"I've never known you to face it. I don't know anything about your
feelings," she replied.
Hora looked at her. She had never dared so to speak to him before, and
he knew that she must be greatly moved to so provoke his anger.
"You know nothing," he replied calmly. "A woman is utterly unable to
comprehend a masculine point of view."
"A woman cannot live in the same house with a man and fail to
know something of his character, and I know something of yours,
Commandatore."
He shrugged his shoulders in amused surprise.
"You find me an interesting study, Myra?" he drawled. He could not have
said anything more calculated to arouse Myra's tempestuous spirit.
"Interesting?" she exclaimed. "I don't know about that. You don't
interest me in the least. I--I--hate you."
"Dear me!" replied Hora equably. "I might have expected you to do so.
Perhaps I have, for there's undoubtedly wisdom in the suggestion that
one does not pluck figs from thistles, though the saying is somewhat
hackneyed."
"You need not throw my origin in my teeth, Commandatore," she replied.
"I am sufficiently conscious of it, and as for gratitude--well, I often
think I should have been far better off in the slums from which you
picked me. I should have been happy enough. The precious education you
have given me has only enabled me to realise my own impossibility. You
have given me knowledge, and with it the capacity for suffering."
"Like your mother Eve," responded Hora quietly, "you longed for the
apple and blame the serpent."
"Eve was no child, and I was a child when you gave me the apple," she
answered more quietly.
"That is true," replied Hora. "Possibly I did wrongly. I should have
left you to bloom in your own soil. You would have been overblown
by this time, Myra--some drunken ruffian's doxy--taking your weekly
beating without a whimper and seeing heaven in a quartern of gin."
"Better that--better that--than----" She paused.
"Well?" asked Hora. She muttered something sullenly, but in so low a
tone that the words did not reach his ears.
He continued, "You were asking me why I think it well that Guy should
have a home of his own. I have given you my reasons. I really should
have thought you were intelligent enough to realise their force."
"I don't believe in them," she flashed out. "Oh, I know you better than
that, Commandatore. I know your subtle methods. You have some other
end in view. What it is I know not, but I am sure it means danger to
Guy." She had been moving restlessly backwards and forwards, but now
she paused and faced Hora. "I tell you, Commandatore, that if anything
happens to Guy you shall not escape. I swear it."
Despite his apparent unconcern Hora was impressed by the
latent passion in her tone. Almost he regretted that he had
not left the beautiful flower to be choked by the weeds
from which he had plucked it. But he remembered that
he had one means of controlling Myra which would necessarily prove
effective. He rose from the chair where he had been sitting. "If
anything happens to Guy, I don't suppose I shall care much what happens
to myself," he replied gravely. "Is he not my son?"
"Your son?" replied Myra. "I doubt it, Commandatore. No father would
ever have brought up a son as you have brought up Guy. Besides, there
is nothing of you in him. I know you both. There's not a feature alike,
and the difference between your thoughts and actions and his is just as
strongly marked."
"You are talking nonsense, Myra," he said harshly, far more perturbed
than he cared to confess at the discovery by which the woman's
intuition had arrived at the truth.
"You may call it nonsense," she continued wildly, "but there's no blood
of yours in Guy's veins----"
Hora checked her. He laid his hand on her shoulder, and though she made
an effort to throw off his grip he held her tightly and thrust her down
into an easy chair.
"You little fool," he said, "you don't know what you are talking about.
Like all women in love you let your imagination run away with you."
She still struggled ineffectually to escape from his grasp while he
continued. "Suppose I had other motives than those I have given to you
and Guy for desiring that he should live apart from us for a little
while, have I ever by any chance done anything which could bring
danger upon him? Did it never occur to you that one of my motives had
connection with yourself?"
She ceased to struggle. Her hands
dropped limply by her side.
"I might have known, I might have known," she cried; "and yet,
Commandatore, you promised me that I should have my chance."
Hora saw that he had won the battle. He loosed his grip of Myra's arm
and returned to his chair.
The girl rose and following him dropped on her knees before him. The
tears were in her eyes and her bosom rose and fell stormily. "You
promised me I should have my chance, Commandatore. Don't send Guy away.
I cannot bear it. Indeed--indeed, I cannot bear it." Sobs choked her
utterance.
Hora allowed her to weep awhile. Then he laid his hand gently on her
bowed head.
"Poor little woman," he said, "if you could only see an inch beyond
your own nose, you would realise that I am giving you your chance now."
She looked up incredulously, but with a dawning hope flushing through
her tears. "I don't understand how----" she began.
"You have been too near Guy," he remarked. "He has never realised your
value. At a little distance he will be more clear-sighted. A woman is
like any other work of art. Her beauties are invisible unless seen in
proper perspective. While you live in the same house he will never
realise that you may be more than a sister."
"Then you think----" she asked.
"I am sure of it," replied Hora decisively. "It is to give you
the chance you desire that I have persuaded Guy to live apart
from us awhile, for that and in order to discover something
about a rival whom I suspect you may have."