Lynton Hora felt more uneasiness than he would have acknowledged at Guy's failure to communicate with him. Nor did the daily reports with which Cornelius Jessel supplied him do anything to allay his disquietude. These would have furnished entertainment for the Commandatore had they related to anybody but Guy. Indeed, the shadow-man's matter-of-fact chronicle of the day-by-day doings of a young man in love would have been food for mirth to the mildest cynic.
"Took G.'s shaving water at seven. D——d me because he scraped himself shaving. Said I hadn't stropped the razors properly. As soon as he was up he went into the garden and helped Miss Challys syringe the rose trees. They went into breakfast together. After breakfast he sent me down to the village to see if some music he had ordered for Miss Challys had arrived. When I got back, found he had gone out in the boat with Miss Challys for a sail. Did not come back until dinner-time. Saw them come home. They had been alone together all day. Heard the Captain say to Mrs. M., 'We shall not have to wait very long now for an announcement.' She answered, 'They hardly seem to remember that there's anybody else in the world....'"
But Lynton Hora was not amused by the report as he would have been had Guy taken him into his confidence respecting what was obviously an affair of the heart. He knew Guy well enough to be aware that he was always in deadly earnest in any pursuit in which he was engaged, and he dreaded the influence which a pure, straightforward woman might have upon him. If Meriel Challys had been the sort of woman who amused herself by luring a man on to a declaration, he would have been delighted at Guy's infatuation, the lesson would have been good for him. But he could not lull his forebodings by any such narcotic.
He saw Guy drifting away from him, throwing overboard the whole cargo of criminal philosophy which had been so carefully provided for him, at the bidding of a mere girl. He had no fear for himself. Guy might recant the faith in which he had been brought up, but Lynton Hora did not for a moment imagine that the recantation would be accompanied by any treachery towards himself. Loyalty was a distinguishing feature of Guy's nature. He would never reveal anything which would injure the man whom he looked upon as father. The Commandatore felt perfectly safe on that point, so long as Guy should not learn, nor even suspect, that he, Lynton Hora, was not his father—the Commandatore did not pursue the thought, though he foresaw the possibility and had provided what he thought would be a complete defence against any trouble to himself through the awakening of such a suspicion. Lynton Hora left as little as possible to chance, and ordinary caution had led him to anticipate the possibility of the discovery of Guy's real parentage, even though the possibility was of the remotest.
But it was not only the question of danger to himself which troubled him. It was the thought that Guy would no longer be his son. All those years he had spent in moulding the boy's mind had not been without effect on Lynton Hora. Unknowingly he had given away what he did not know that he possessed. It was in reality a real human affection for his foster child which made him so perturbed. Cold as he had always been in his outward demeanour, he had learned, when Guy had departed to chambers of his own, that without him life had somehow suddenly ceased to interest him. The fanatical priest rearing the victim for sacrifice upon the altar of an unappeasable deity suddenly realised that he had learned to love the proposed victim. Yet, rather than he should fall under the influence of the man whom he looked upon as his bitterest enemy, he would have sacrificed the victim even if he should eternally regret the oblation.
He did not, it is true, anticipate such necessity. He allowed for Guy's youth. Youth was ever impressionable and romantic, changing in its fancy, and ever amenable to the mutable feminine. Once let him be removed from the presence of Meriel Challys and Hora thought that Guy might be weaned from his obvious infatuation. Indeed, there was a probability that his romantic imaginings might be turned to account. The young man, floundering out of his depths in the quicksands of romantic imaginings, might be easily captured by the wiles of a really clever woman.
Hora set himself earnestly to work to tutor Myra in the part he destined her to play in the recalling of Guy. He did so entirely by suggestion. He had taken her away from London, telling her that she needed sea air to restore the roses of her complexion, if she wished to be beautiful in Guy's eyes when she returned to town. Then, when away, he continued, day by day, hour by hour almost, to sting her emotions. His sneers were all directed at the virtuous woman; never had Myra found him so entertaining. He excited her imagination by the books he brought her to read, tales of passionate surrender, memoirs of the courts of bygone centuries, when love and lechery were synonymous terms. He talked to her much of Guy, dwelling on his physical attributes, declaring that he was as other men. If Myra realised any intention in his words, she gave no sign of doing so. Then one day, soon after leaving town, Hora gave a hint that perhaps already some rival was claiming Guy's kisses. At that suggestion Myra's eyes flashed dangerously. Hora noted the glance.
"You will take me home again."
"There's only one perfect revenge upon a rival," Hora remarked, "and that is to steal away the rival's lover."