Chapter 7. Felix Brand Reads A Letter

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_ CHAPTER VII. FELIX BRAND READS A LETTER

When Henrietta Marne entered her office on the morning of the second day after the publication of the charges against Felix Brand, she found her employer already there, but sitting moodily at his desk, his head in his hands.

As she came forward, exclaiming joyfully and making anxious inquiries about his welfare, he shrank back for a bare instant, with a slight turning away, as of one who fears observation. But he quickly recovered himself, rose with his usual deferential politeness and gave her cordial greeting. She noted that he looked well, although his face still bore a harrowed expression. A something out of the ordinary in his appearance her eyes soon resolved into the fact that his dark, waving hair, which previously he had always worn rather long and parted in the middle, was so short that it curled closely over his head.

"I've seen the papers," he told her, "and I'm quite flattered to find I'm of enough consequence to have such a fuss made over me just because I left the city for a few days. If I had dreamed there would be this sort of an ado I'd have told you where I was going. But my idea was to keep my whereabouts quiet while I went down into West Virginia, in the mountains, to look into the proposition of developing a marble quarry. I expected when I left to return in three or four days, but it was necessary to go so far on horseback that I couldn't get back that soon and I was so far from the telegraph that I couldn't communicate with you."

"Every one was very anxious, and, down in my heart, I was, too, but I told everybody that it was all right, that you were just away on business and that I expected you back any minute."

"Yes, I saw what a good face you put on it when the reporters insisted on knowing everything you knew, or guessed, or could make up. I'm grateful to you, Miss Marne, for the very sensible stand you took. You showed sense and prudence and did all that you could to stop that absurd fuss. If I should happen to go away again unexpectedly,--" he hesitated, wincing ever so little, but quickly went on: "My deal fell through this time, but I may have to go again, although I hope not, for it's a beastly journey. But if I should, and there should be any disturbance about it, you can say frankly that I've gone to look at some land in the West Virginia mountains, away off the railroad, so that it is impossible to get hold of me until I return to civilization again."

He stopped for a moment, as though turning something over in his mind. "But I don't want to say just where it is," he proceeded cautiously, "because I don't want certain parties to know that I am after this property. And if I don't tell you where it is," and he turned toward her with a pleasant smile and the caressing look in his soft brown eyes that had so much power to stir feminine hearts, "you can truthfully say, if you are asked, that you don't know where I am or how I can be reached."

"How considerate of me he always is," thought Henrietta as she thanked him.

It was not until she had gone through the accumulation of mail with him and had explained to him all that she had done during his absence that he mentioned Hugh Gordon. Then he merely asked, with some hesitation at the name, as though he could with difficulty bring himself to speak it, if no letter had come from him.

"Yes," she replied, unlocking a drawer and taking out a bulky envelope, "this came yesterday, but I guessed that it was from him and so did not open it."

Brand's dark, handsome face turned a trifle paler and his hand trembled as he thrust the letter quickly into his breast pocket.

When the newspapermen came to ask if there were yet any news of him Brand saw them in his own room. He said nothing to Henrietta about the charges made against him by the investigating committee, but in the evening papers and again in those of the next morning she read his defense.

He knew Mr. Flaherty, knew him quite well, he told the reporters, and had had business dealings with him. Mr. Flaherty had advised him about several investments he had thought of making and had helped him in getting some out-of-the-way information concerning them. He had been impressed by the shrewdness of Mr. Flaherty's judgment in these matters, had relied on him a good deal and, altogether, had felt under so much obligation to him that when, after a while, he put a considerable sum of money into Mr. Flaherty's hands for investment, he had insisted upon the politician's taking a more liberal commission than was customary. His idea had been to show his appreciation and relieve himself from any entanglement or obligation. If Mr. Flaherty had chosen to consider it a bribe, he, Felix Brand, could hardly be held responsible for another's idiosyncrasies.

Yes, he had talked with Mr. Flaherty about the municipal art commission and quite possibly had said, in some such conversation, that he would like to be a member of that body because of certain desirable things which it could do, if it would make the effort, for the city's benefit.

He did not know, but he supposed that Mr. Flaherty, agreeing with him about these things and perhaps moved by both public spirit and friendly impulse, had persuaded some of his own friends higher up to suggest his appointment to the commission. He had been, he declared to the newspapermen, surprised and deeply gratified by that appointment and keenly sensible of how great an honor it was, and he had hoped to make his service upon the commission tell for the good of the city.

But he did not wish to hold any position, and especially one so peculiarly delicate in its relations to the public service, under suspicion of any sort of evil practice. And therefore he was willing to resign at once if the investigating committee and the mayor thought they were warranted even in assuming his guilt, although he himself would deeply feel the injustice of such a decision and would be profoundly disappointed should he be unable to make trial of the plans he had been formulating.

The men from the papers were eager to know all that he could, or would, tell them about Hugh Gordon. Had Gordon tried to blackmail him? Was he a relative? What had become of him? Was there anything in Miss Annister's suggestion that Gordon had made a prisoner of him and tried to extract money in that way?

The reporters all noticed that he answered their questions on this subject slowly and with caution. Some of the queries he evaded, some he adroitly ignored, only a few did he meet squarely and fully, and he gave them the very distinct impression that he thought this phase of the matter of no consequence whatever. The sum total of the information they got from him was that he had a very slight acquaintance with "this man Gordon," who, he admitted, was a sort of connection; that he could not exactly say the fellow had tried to blackmail him, although he had made some threats and also had, to express it politely, borrowed money of him; that he had not been held in durance vile during his absence, but had been freely chasing the almighty dollar in a backwoods region of the South; and that he had not the slightest idea whither Gordon had gone, or what had become of him.

And all the time that he talked, and, indeed, through every moment of the day, the one thing of which he was supremely conscious was that bulky envelope that seemed like a weight of lead in his breast pocket. Many times, when he found himself alone, did his hand move quickly toward it. But each time, with a little shudder of repulsion and a furtive glance about the room, his arm fell back and the letter was left untouched. It was not until late in the evening, when he had returned to his apartment and had sat for many minutes alone in his library, his expression telling of a dark and bitter mood, that at last, with sudden resolution, he drew the packet from his breast.

Even then he did not at once open it, but held it in a shaking hand, and stared at it with an angry frown. Once he grasped it in both hands and made as if he would tear it in two. But his fingers stopped with their first movement and his arms dropped.

Springing impatiently to his feet he moved toward the grate as if he would fling the missive upon the coals. But again his will weakened and with a resentful exclamation he walked back to his seat. As he tore the envelope open, he looked up, startled, as if he had heard some unusual sound, gazed about the room, moved the hangings at the window, hurried to the door, which stood ajar, and, after a glance into the next room, closed and locked it. Again he started and stared about him apprehensively. Had he heard, he asked himself, or only imagined, the sound of a scornful, arrogant laugh?

At last, forcing himself to the task, he began to read the letter. It was written in a large, open, round hand that was very legible, notwithstanding the somewhat irregular formation of the letters.

"I went last week to see your mother and sister," it began abruptly, "and you must understand, right now, that you must pay more attention to them. You must have the house repaired and, in general, make them more comfortable--you can see, as well as another, what needs to be done. They would like to have some sign, now and then, that you remember and care about them, and you must give it. I enclose the titles of some books that Penelope would like to read and you must buy them and send them to her at once. I told her you would. And I told them, too, that you are planning to give Penelope a surprise by enclosing one end of the porch with glass so that she can sit there during the winter. You'd better make them a visit over Sunday--next Sunday--and give the order for the work while you are there. Oh, I know that your beauty-loving soul shrinks from having to look at poor, helpless, misshapen Penelope. I understand perfectly well that you much prefer to look at young and pretty women, but my mind is set on this matter. You must do as I--shall we say, suggest?--and that without delay or--there will be consequences. Her poor body is not half so ugly or repulsive as your selfish soul, Felix Brand, and you know very well who is responsible for them both."

As Brand read these last words a quick flush darkened his face, his lips twitched angrily and with a sudden access of wrath he was about to tear the sheet into strips, when his eye caught the next sentence and his countenance paled again as quickly as it had flushed. "And it is my opinion," the letter went on, "that she also is not entirely ignorant on that question."

Brand half rose, crushing the letter in his hand. "Blackguard! I'll read no more of his scurrilous stuff!" he exclaimed with angry emphasis. But the next instant he hesitated, glanced about the room with a sort of dazed uncertainty, then sank into the chair and resumed the letter.

"As you will, doubtless, have learned when you read this, I have done what I told you I would about that municipal art commission affair. You didn't believe I knew enough to carry the thing through successfully. But you know better now. I hope it will convince you that when I make--a suggestion, I mean it and that you'd better follow my advice unless you are willing to take the consequences. That bargaining you did with Flaherty was so idiotic that I lost all patience with you. If you had been willing to wait a while, a year or so, you could have got the position in a perfectly honorable way. But, no! you must have it right now, in order to further your own selfish ends. And so you reach out and snatch it, just as you try to grasp ruthlessly whatever you need or desire for your own purposes. And, as usual, you left the mark of your pitchy fingers. Your soul is so blackly selfish, Felix Brand, that it oozes corruption out of your very finger-ends and contaminates whatever you touch.

"I am much interested in your mother and sister, and I want them to be happy. Unless you do for them more of what it is in your power to do, as I told you before, there will be consequences--I don't know what, just yet, but I can promise you that you will find them unpleasant. I have an eye on several other people also and if it is possible for you to stop any of the mischief you have set going you must do it. It would take too long to speak of all the people you have started in evil ways with your insidious, damnable philosophy, and would probably be useless, too. But there is young Mark Fenlow, on the down grade already, though out of college less than a year. And it was you who put him there.

"Oh, I know how blameless you consider yourself! I know you say it is the right of every one to taste every pleasure within his reach; that it is necessary for one's all-round development to know all sides of life; that it adds not only to one's pleasure, but also to his knowledge of life and so to his personal power to try for himself every possible new experience. You are strong enough to dabble in every filthy pool you encounter, and then to let it alone and go on to another. You live your philosophy and, so far as others can see, although you and I know better, you are none the worse for it. You are a promising young architect, already winning wealth and fame, a charming fellow, a handsome genius, whose friendship is worth having and whose example it is surely all right to follow! But what about those who do follow it and have less will power and perhaps less of that self-control that ambition gives? Are you so hide-bound in your selfishness that you feel no responsibility for them?

"But I know you are. And so I demand that you do something to try to keep Mark Fenlow away from the gaming table and make him understand what will be the outcome of the way he is going now. There's Robert Moreton, too. He begins to look like a dope fiend. I don't know whether he is or not, but he looks it. If he is, it is all because you described to him what a wonderful experience you had when you spent a night in an opium joint and told him he'd better try it, just to see what it was like. I want you to look him up, put him into a sanitarium and, if he needs it, help him financially.

"There are many others, but I can not stop to speak of them all now. Your own conscience ought to tell you of them--if, indeed, you have a conscience, except for me--and move you to try to repair the damage you have done. I insist only that you shall do something, and I'll leave the matter in that shape for the present--until I come again. For I shall come again, Felix Brand, and you can not hinder me. I do not know when, but it will not be long, I promise you.

"I do not know yet just what I shall do. I have been hoping there would be room enough in life for us both. But I begin to doubt that a man so evil as you has the right to live, and big plans are stirring within me. But it will all depend, I think, upon you; upon whether or not you show a desire to overcome your deliberately fostered selfishness and a willingness to recognize your human responsibilities,--upon whether you try to refrain from evil paths yourself and to right the effects of your influence upon others. Yes, I think I can say that the end of all this will depend upon you. And I shall be square with you. I shall do nothing without giving you fair warning and affording you every chance.

"With the money I borrowed of you--willy-nilly, it is true, but still borrowed, for I shall repay it--I intend to go into the real estate business. I have been looking about a little in several cities--New York, Boston, Philadelphia--that was why the reporters could not find me these few days--and have decided where I shall make my beginning and selected the man I shall take into partnership. A week or two when I return, and then it will be plain sailing. I shall repay that compulsory loan with my earliest profits, for I do not choose to be in the least indebted to you.

"As I have what I profoundly feel to be your best interests at heart, and am working for them, I can, with a clear conscience, sign myself,

"Faithfully yours,
"HUGH GORDON."

As Brand read the last lines he sprang to his feet with a sharply indrawn breath and a muttered oath. In his eyes, instead of their habitual soft, affectionate look, was the glitter of a roused animal.

"Impudent devil!" he exclaimed. "Scoundrel! Dictating to me as if he had the right!" He crushed the letter in one fist and, striding across the room, threw it upon the coals with an angry jerk of his arm.

"The fellow used to be amusing," he said to himself, scowling with anger as he watched the sheets blaze up, "but he's getting too insolent to put up with any longer."

His scowl deepened as he watched a word or phrase shine out in the lapping flame, and remembered the context. "Damn you," he cried aloud, whirling about and shaking his fist at the empty room. "I'll take no orders from you! I'll force you back where you belong--and I'll do it in my own way, too!" _

Read next: Chapter 8. Days Of Stress

Read previous: Chapter 6. Who Is Hugh Gordon?

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