Chapter 1

"LET THEM GET WHO HAVE THE POWER, AND LET THEM KEEP WHO CAN"

The night was of velvety blackness--one of those soft, warm, dark
nights of June when the southwest wind rolls a cloud-curtain over the
stars, when the air is heavy with unshed rain, when lamps burn dully,
and when a nameless oppression broods over the face of the land.

Seated at an open casement looking out into the London night was a
woman. Her hands grasped each other over her knee with a tense grip
which gave the lie to the calm of her face. Hers was a face to which in
repose Rossetti would have woven an adoring sonnet, though not as to
another "lazy, laughing, languid Jenny, fond of a kiss, and fond of a
guinea," but a sonnet of purity and peace. Yet if the sonnet had been
written, and the woman had read, the full scarlet lips which seemed to
have gathered into them all the colour from her face, would have parted
in scornful laughter.

Her eyes, a part of the night into which they gazed, had dull shadows
beneath them, painted there by weariness, yet she still sat motionless
in a strained attitude of expectation.

Her sole companion, seated a few yards away in an
easy chair, looked up at her occasionally from a book
which he held in his hand and smiled.

Lynton Hora, the Commandatore, as he chose to be called by the members
of his household, was in quite another way an equally interesting type
of humanity. He was a man of seventy inches, broad shouldered and
lean flanked, with well-poised head. His hair was grey at the sides,
his face was clean-shaven. Seen lounging in the easy chair, with his
face in the shadow, he appeared to be a man of not more than forty--an
old-young student, perhaps, for there were thought lines on his brow
and his cheeks were almost as pallid as those of the woman at the
window. Such an impression would, however, have been speedily put to
flight, immediately he looked up. Then there could be no mistaking the
man of action. The keen, hard, grey eyes, the domineering nose, the
firmly cut lips, labelled him definitely--conclusively.

Presently the woman altered her position. The in-drawing of her breath,
as she turned from the window, might have been a sigh. She looked
around at her companion.

He seemed conscious of the movement, as, without lifting his eyes, he
asked lazily: "Tired, Myra?"

She strove to reproduce the quietude of his tone as she replied: "A
little. What's the time now, Commandatore?" but there was a tremor in
her voice, which showed clearly that she was not so indifferent as she
wished to appear.

The man tossed down his book.

"Listen," he said.

Almost as if in answer to his summons the voice of Big Ben
floated softly in through the window--one--two.

"He ought to be back by now," she said, and rising, she began to
rearrange the roses in a bowl on a table near.

"I don't expect Guy for another hour at least," said the man
carelessly, though he watched the woman keenly as he spoke. "After
that--well, if we don't see him in an hour, we shall probably not see
him for five years, at least."

The woman winced as from a blow.

"Five, or seven? It won't matter much, will it?" she replied quietly.
Then in a moment her self-control dropped from her. Her lethargy
vanished. A light came into her eyes, her nostrils became vibrant.
Without alteration of pitch her voice became passionate. "It is
horrible--brutal of you--to send him on such a business. What can
possess you to do such a thing--can you not spare even----"

"Hush!" The man's voice interrupted her. He spoke with silken suavity.
"How often have I told you that the reiteration of facts known to both
parties to a conversation is the hall-mark of the unintelligent!" "By
Jove, Myra," he continued, changing the subject, "how really beautiful
you are! What a lucky dog Guy is to rouse such an interest!"

The woman dropped her eyes and the man continued meditatively, "What
a vast alteration has taken place in the ideal of feminine beauty
since the fifteenth century! Do you know, Myra, while you have been
sitting so patiently at the window I have been measuring you by the
canons of beauty laid down by that sleek old churchman, Master Agnolo
Firenzuola"--he tapped the black letter volume which lay beside
him--"and though he, I'm afraid, would have many faults to find with
your features----"

The levity of his tone roused her again to passionate utterance.

"No more," she cried. "Have you no heart left in you, Commandatore,
that you can send your own son to such danger and sit there calmly
reading while----" She broke off abruptly, her voice choked with a sob.

Lynton Hora rose from his seat and viewed the woman, who shrank from
his steady gaze.

"Have matters gone so far as that?" he asked, and his lips smiled
cynically.

She made no reply.

"You never asked my permission," he continued dispassionately. "Guy
has said nothing. I am afraid, Myra, I shall have to see that he is
protected from your influence."

She looked at him appealingly, and her eyes were as the night, heavy
with unshed rain.

"He--is--your--son," she said slowly. "I--I cannot do him the harm that
you can do him, and yet--I am afraid for him. Perhaps you had better
send me away, Commandatore. My fears may make a coward of him."

The man spoke as if musing aloud. "Where shall I send you? Back to the
gutter from whence I picked you? Do you remember anything of your home,
Myra?"

"I know. I know," she protested. "You have reminded me often enough."

He paid no heed to her appeal.

"Yesterday," he said, "I visited the place. No, it has not tumbled
down yet, my dear--the very house where your mother sold you to me for
half-a-crown and a bottle of gin, a dirty child of five. That was
fifteen years ago--fifteen years ago to-day. You were unwanted, uncared
for--I wanted you, I cared for you. Let me tell you how I found your
mother, Myra?"

She lifted her hands with a gesture of appeal, but he disregarded the
action.

"She occupies the same old room. There's but little light finds its
way through the dirty window, though enough to show that your mother
has not changed her habits--nor her rags. She sat there alone, like
a dropsical spider and cried aloud for gin. Would you like to change
this"--his hand directed attention to the apartment--"for a share of
your mother's abode, Myra Norton?"

Myra had seated herself. She made no answer for a while. Her eyes
wandered about the long apartment, with its shaded lights and its
flowers and its luxurious furniture. Her hand dropped on the silken
gauze of her dress. The man watching smiled as he saw the flash of
the diamonds on her fingers and noted the caressing motion of her
fingers upon the shimmering fabric. At last she raised her eyes to her
questioner.

"You could not send me back," she said.

"I could send you to a worse place," he replied coldly. "You know my
power."

She shuddered.

His tone changed completely.

"You little fool," he said roughly, but with a kindliness his speech
had lacked hitherto. "You know very well that I could never let you go
back to the stews from which I rescued you. But I wanted to remind you,
Myra, that you belong to me--that, like myself, you are
pledged to war--a merciless, devouring, devastating war with Society;
that you, even as I myself, are outcast--one from whom the world would
shrink--you have been in danger of forgetting lately, Myra."

"I have not forgotten," she answered with comparative quietness, "but I
have been thinking of what is the use of it all, this eternal warfare
against the world. You have won again and again. You have told me that
you are the richer by what the world has lost. You lack nothing that
money may buy. There must come a time when the warrior must rest."

"Not while his arm retains its strength to lift his sword," replied
Hora, "and by that time he should have provided someone to take his
place."

"But if that person is unequal to the task?" Myra queried timidly.

"He pays the penalty," answered Hora.

"Even if it is your own son?" she persisted.

"Or your lover," he added coldly.

"Your heart is iron," she murmured despairingly.

He laughed aloud. "Or non-existent," he said. "It was stolen from me
years ago, and I have forgotten what it was like to be possessed of
one. Now I have only my profession--and in that I am first. You admit
that, Myra?"

"I admit that," she replied sullenly.

"Why should I not train my successor to take my place when my day
comes?"

The woman in the listener cried out instinctively "Because he has what
you lack--a heart."

He smiled grimly. "It is easily lost, Myra. What if I
should say to you some day: Take it from him, toss
it away, trample on it, break it, or store it away and treasure it with
your trinkets--do as you like with it?"

"You would----" She rose from her seat and faced him with extended
arms. Her lips were slightly parted. The shadows had flitted away from
her eyes. Her bosom rose stormily from its gauze veilings. Her lithe
form was poised expectantly.

"By Jove, you are beautiful, Myra," he answered.

"I am glad of it--glad," she cried exultantly.

Hora stood in a thoughtful attitude.

"Myra--Myrrha," he half-mused, turning the name about, "a good name for
a love-potion, there's a foreshadowing of the bitterness of love in it."

Her brow clouded and she turned away. "You are always mocking me," she
muttered.

"No," he said, and he stepped across the room to her side. There was
something strange about his walk. He passed across the room with the
swift, stealthy swing of a panther--a wounded panther, for one foot
dragged after the other and robbed his progress of complete grace. He
came to her side and laid his hand on her arm.

"I am not mocking, Myra," he said seriously. "I have long wanted to
know exactly where Guy was placed in your thoughts. You have never
revealed yourself until to-night. Even now I am not quite sure----"

Myra's countenance cleared and a happy smile shone on her face. She
looked up at him expectantly.

"You can tell me how much you care for him," he continued. "I shall not
reveal your confidence to Guy."

She dropped her eyes.

"I cannot tell anyone," she whispered
with a strange shyness.

Hora smiled whimsically. "What liars love makes of us all," he said.
"Yet perhaps you are speaking truthfully. You cannot tell me what you
do not know."

"I could die--die happily--for him," she murmured softly.

"Fools sometimes die for utter strangers," remarked Hora sardonically.
"That's not love. Could you live for him, could you give yourself to
another for his welfare, could you----"

"Not that, no, not that!" The cry was wrung from her lips. "You would
not condemn me to that, Commandatore?"

"Hush, Myra," he said. "I was merely speaking of possibilities which
might arise in the future."

"I thought," she faltered, "that some scheme had crossed your brain,
which would necessitate--I could not do it now."

"I have thought of no scheme," he replied reassuringly, "which would
wither this new flower which has blossomed in your heart."

"You are mocking again," she remarked.

"I am speaking seriously," he retorted, "of possibilities which might
occur. Guy's mate must be prepared for anything--for everything.
You must remember that I am not to be turned aside from the object
I have in view. Nor is Guy to be turned aside either. His will is
as inflexible as mine. The woman who mates with him must be at one
with him in his purpose, and, if need be, must be ready to sacrifice
herself. Tell me now, Myra, if you can do that, or must I find a mate
for him who will?"

She did not hesitate a moment. The blood rushed to her
face. "For Guy I would do anything," she cried. "All that I ask is to
be near him to help him to----"

"To weaken him with your woman fears," Hora interpolated.

"No," she cried. "He would never know that I feared for his safety. Let
me try, Commandatore. Give a fair chance--only that!"

He meditated a while, then he tapped Myra's arm with his finger.

"You shall have your chance," he said. "But remember it is your
business to keep him to his profession. He has no time for lovemaking.
You shall have your chance, but be sure you use it wisely. If you do,
the day may come when I shall say to Guy, there is your wife--and the
wife will be the child I have picked from the gutter and educated and
treated as my own."

There was a brooding menace in the tone in which he finished, and the
woman feared to waken him to speech again. At last, he said harshly:

"Have you no thanks, Myra?"

"You frighten me sometimes, Commandatore," she answered timidly. "I
cannot understand you."

"You will do so some day," he replied. He seemed amused at the idea,
for he laughed and spoke good-humouredly. "If you make good use of your
chances, my girl, everything will become clear to you. You have wit
as well as beauty, Myra. Make use of them both. He is of an age to be
caught."

Through the open window the voice of Big Ben solemnly tolled three.

The light died out of the woman's face. "Cruel," she murmured in a
tense, hoarse whisper. "It was cruel to mock me so. Something has
happened to him. The hour has passed. Oh! Guy, Guy!"

Lynton Hora turned upon her fiercely. "Is this a specimen of your
self-control?" he said. "Haven't you learned that in the profession
Guy has adopted a thousand trivial events may supply reason for delay?
Mind, if I have any snivelling I withdraw my promise."

Myra was constrained into silence. She went to the window. Already
the black night had given place to the grey mists of coming dawn. She
looked out over the park. Uprising from the sea of shadows objects
began to emerge. From the near distance the music of violins and harps
throbbed to a waltz measure. She stood there unheeding while the light
strengthened, and the dawn came up from the east in a glory of crimson
and gold. She stood there unseeing, her heart throbbing with agony, yet
with face schooled to complete apathy.

The rose and the gold faded from the sky. Another day had begun. She
had forgotten Hora's presence, forgotten everything. She closed the
window and lifted her hand to pull down the blinds and shut out the
day. Hora's voice awakened her.

"Listen," he said, and, rising swiftly from his chair, he pushed Myra
aside and threw open the casement again. The sharp sound of the bell of
an electric brougham entered that window on the eighth storey just as
the voice of Big Ben proclaimed four.

"Only somebody's brougham," said Myra listlessly.

"My brougham," replied Hora curtly. "Bringing Guy home."

She shrugged her shoulders. "Coming back without him, most likely,"
she said. Still, in spite of the remark, hope showed itself in her
expression. The carriage stopped. For five minutes a strained silence
endured. It was broken by the sound of an outside door opening and
shutting. Another pause! Both were looking towards the door of the
apartment in which Myra and Hora stood expectantly. Hora held up his
finger warningly to his companion.

The door opened and there entered a young man in evening clothes, his
coat was over his arm, upon which an umbrella was hooked, and his hat
was in his hand.

"Hullo! I didn't expect anyone to be waiting up for me," he remarked
cheerfully. "I thought that was a privilege reserved for the reprobate
sons of evangelical households. I suppose you haven't been praying for
the success of my undertaking."

He laughed joyously. His high spirits seemed infectious. Hora smiled
responsively. Joy illuminated Myra's expressive features like sunlight
on the woodlands after an April shower.

"You surely did not think that I should fail?" he asked, looking from
one to another.

"I did not," replied Hora drily. "Myra scarcely shared my confidence
though. She seemed to think that it was brutal of me to give you a
chance of showing what you could do, when working on your own account."

The young man laughed again.

"These women--these women," he said. Then he turned to Myra.
"I thought that you, at least, would have had confidence in
me." He tossed his coat on to a chair, and going to her,
encircled her waist with his arm. "Did you really think
I should fail in my first coup?" he asked.

"No--no--no," she cried vehemently. "But, oh, Guy! I was afraid. If I
could only have come with you--to have shared in the danger."

"Then I probably should have failed," he added. "As it is----"

He turned to Hora and there was a proud gleam in his eyes. "You must
set me a more difficult task next time, Commandatore," he said.

"Then you have secured the picture?" asked the elder man eagerly.

For reply, Guy lifted the umbrella from the table where he had laid
it down. To all appearance it was merely a specimen of the article it
pretended to be, but in the young man's hands the handle unscrewed,
revealing the fact that it was a sham. Instead of an umbrella, a long
narrow case was revealed, and from within it Guy coaxed with infinite
care a roll of canvas.

"It was rather a tight fit," he remarked, "but I don't think I have
damaged the picture." He unrolled the canvas carefully on the table.

Hora's eyes sparkled as he looked down upon the painting.

"How I have longed for a genuine Greuze to add to my collection," he
remarked, "and this--this is the most perfect specimen in the world. My
dear Guy, how can I ever be grateful enough to you?"

Was there a dash of sarcasm in his voice? If so, the young man did not
notice it. He was moved to genuine emotion.

"It is a little thing in return for all you have done for me," he
replied earnestly. He laid his hand on the elder man's arm as he
continued, "There's nothing I would not do which would add to your
happiness--you have given me so much."

Hora shook off the grasp.

"The air is overcharged with sentiment," he said lightly. "Myra here
might have been trained in an English boarding school for young ladies,
she is so full of it. And now you." He held up his hands in derision.

Guy laughed gaily. He was used to Hora's moods.

"Sentiment does sound a little incongruous from the lips of a
successful burglar, doesn't it?" he said, and he laughed again at the
whimsicality of the idea. "Yet you know that at heart, Commandatore,
you are just as much of a sentimentalist as either Myra or myself. What
else can be the motive of your perpetual enmity with the world?"

"What else; ay, what else," murmured Hora musingly, a bitter smile
about his lips. "But, all the same, there's no need to debauch our
minds with contemplation of sentiment. It's dangerous."

He returned to an examination of the picture.

"The fool who owned this," he said, "would have sold it. He's no poorer
for the loss. It is not the loss of the work of art that he will
regret, but the loss of the ten thousand guineas he gave for it."

"It is in really appreciative hands now," remarked Guy after a
pause. "By the way," he added, picking up his overcoat from the
chair, "I could not resist the temptation of bringing away a few
of the best examples of Flurscheim's snuff-boxes. I know you have
a vacant corner or two in the cabinets upstairs, and if you think
they are not worthy of being placed in them, well the brilliants
in the settings will make a necklace for Myra."

He thrust his hand into the pockets and took out a number of superb
specimens of the art of a bygone age.

"It was very thoughtful of you," said Hora, as he lifted each box
lovingly as Guy laid it on the table. There were twelve in all, and
eight he placed on one side. "These are really artistic productions,"
he said, "and I shall keep them. The others are worth no more than the
intrinsic value of the stones and of the gold of which they are made."

Guy turned to Myra. "What will you have them made into, Myra, a necklet
or a bracelet?--I must give you a keepsake to wear in memory of my
first big exploit."

"Anything you like, Guy," she answered softly, while her face flushed
with delight.

"Then we will think of something," he observed carelessly. He picked up
one of the boxes which Hora had placed aside. "I think I should like to
keep this one myself, Commandatore," he remarked, "as a souvenir of the
occasion."

Hora took it from his hand and looked at the box curiously. In the lid
was set an exquisite miniature on ivory of a young girl, with regular,
delicate features and a cloud of golden hair.

"You have good taste, keep it, by all means," urged Hora carelessly.
A slight hesitation in Guy's tone as he proffered the request was
evidence to his swift brain that the young man had not revealed
the whole of his reason for the desire to retain that particular
box. He knew that he could when he liked elicit that reason. But
the morning was advancing. He began to feel wearied. He would
have plenty of time on the morrow to learn all that he desired to know.

"Come, my children," he said, "it is time we went to bed. Guy, you will
help me put these new possessions of ours into a place of security.
Sleep well, Myra."

The woman accepted the dismissal submissively. She re-echoed the wish,
and, with a last glance over her shoulder at Guy as she swept out of
the room, she left them.

"Myra's getting very fond of you, Guy," remarked Hora when the door had
closed behind her.

"Indeed," he answered carelessly, for his mind was running on other
matters.

Hora laughed at the tone, but he did not renew the subject.

"What made you so late?" he asked.

"Some jolly people I met at the ball," he answered absently. "I stopped
an hour longer than I intended."

"H--m, business before pleasure is as good a motto for your profession
as for any other," said Hora.

"I know," answered Guy, "but still----"

"You are young," commented Hora, "I hope that in your haste you left no
clue."

The young man laughed. "Plenty," he said, "but all false ones."

"Well, you shall tell me all about it in the morning," said Hora.
"Bring the stuff along."

Guy gathered up the sham umbrella and the jewelled snuff-boxes,
slipping the one he had decided to retain for himself into his pocket.

Hora raised the picture reverently and led the way
out of the room, Guy following him.