"Dear Guy," Hora had written, "you are a most amazing person, and I haven't the slightest idea as to the meaning of your melodramatic phrases. You know you may always please yourself as to anything you choose to do. If you do not like your profession, by all means change it for any of the legalised forms of plunder, but, even if this is in your thoughts, you need not worry over it. A man has an inalienable right to please himself, and I shall not think less of you for making your own decision, even if that decision is one which destroys all my hopes of a successor. You will find I can discuss the matter quite philosophically, but come before dinner to-morrow night, and we will have a quiet chat over a cigar afterwards. If our ways are to lie apart, you need not quite desert us. Perhaps you might even convince me, not, perhaps, that my calling is not as honourable as any other parasitic method of living, but that I might do well at my age to retire from the active practice of my profession. Dinner at 8.30. Yours, Lynton Hora."
Myra read the letter, but the perusual brought no hope to her. Hora folded it, placed it in an envelope, sealed and stamped it deliberately. He rang the bell and ordered the letter to be posted. Myra still sat silent. Then Hora said to her quietly:
"You will have to entertain Guy alone to-morrow, Myra. I shall be called away on important business."
"I cannot, indeed I cannot," she cried.
He continued deaf to her protest. "It is your only chance, Myra. To-morrow night you must win him or lose him forever. You must not fail——"
He turned and left the room, leaving the threat unspoken.
She sat there long after he departed.
Her only chance! In one or two brief hours she must bind Guy to her indissolubly. Hora had taught her, without ever once uttering a word which might offend, how she could win him if she so chose. He had insisted upon Guy's chivalrous nature. He had insisted, too, that the most Puritanical of men could be fascinated by an appeal to the senses. Thoughts came to her which set her cheeks burning. But she could not banish those thoughts. She remained motionless until a maid appeared to ask if she could see Madame Gabrielle.
"Yes, at once," she answered. "Bring her to my room."
Her listlessness had entirely departed as she rose and hurried after the maid. A minute later the dressmaker was ushered into her presence. The woman was a voluble specimen of her type, and as she unpacked the box she descanted freely on the beauties of the "creation" she had brought with her. She became more voluble than ever when Myra was robed in the new frock.