Chapter 10

HUGH GORDON WINS HENRIETTA'S CONFIDENCE

Henrietta reached the office early that morning, lest her employer, in his eagerness to push his work, now that he could devote himself to it with undivided energies, should get there first. She looked forward to the day with pleasant anticipations, for she had assisted him in this way before and she liked it the best of all her duties. The books were ready upon his desk, but he had not yet arrived. She waited for him all the forenoon, employing herself as best she could, and still he did not come.

In the afternoon she tried to get his apartment on the telephone, but there was no answer. Surely, he would not have left the city, after such preparations for a busy day, without sending her some message. She called up Dr. Annister and asked if he had seen Mr. Brand that day, or knew whether or not he had unexpectedly gone out of the city. No, the doctor replied, he had not seen Mr. Brand since the evening before, when he and Mildred and Mrs. Annister had gone to the theatre together. As Mildred had been looking quite happy all day he did not think Felix could have said anything about going out of town. And he had promised to dine with them tomorrow night. Doubtless if he had gone anywhere it was only for the day and Dr. Annister was cheerfully confident Henrietta might expect to see him again on the morrow.

She lingered at the office an hour later than usual, hoping for some word from the architect. But none came. The next morning she hurried back, eagerly anticipating a letter or a telegram, but found neither. All day she waited, her nerves on edge with expectation and anxiety, but Brand did not come nor did he send her any message.

"This is worse than it was before," thought Henrietta, "for then he told me beforehand that he might have to go. And he said so positively, only a little while ago, that he did not intend to take that trip south again. Perhaps he found he had to go after all. Anyway, I guess it's what I'd better tell people."

Remembering his dinner engagement at Dr. Annister's, she made that explanation over the telephone. Both to Dr. Annister and afterward to Mildred she said that she did not know positively that he had gone to West Virginia, but that he had told her, when he returned from his former absence, that that was where he had been and that he might have to go again, although he had not told her the exact place because, for business reasons, he did not want it to be known.

Yes, Mildred assented, he had said the same thing to her and she understood just how it was. But all the same, it was cruel of Felix, and not at all like him, for he was always so sweetly considerate, to go off in this sudden, secret way and leave them all in such suspense.

"When we're married," and a happy little laugh came rippling over the telephone to Henrietta's ear, "it shan't be like this, for then he'll have to take me with him on all such jaunts and I'll see to it that you know where we are."

As the days went by, Henrietta, pondering with ever increasing anxiety the mystery of this second disappearance, began to doubt the explanation she gave to others. This time there came up no reason for public interest and so even the knowledge that he was away was confined to a few of his friends and to those who wished to see him upon business. With all inquirers his secretary treated his absence as an ordinary matter, saying merely that she thought he was somewhere in the mountains of West Virginia, she did not know exactly where, nor could she say positively when he would be back.

Nevertheless, looking back over what he said to her on his return after his previous long absence, Henrietta recognized in it a touch of insincerity. At the time she had accepted it as a matter of course, but now, scrutinizing her memory of his words and his manner, in the light of all that had happened since, she finally said to herself, "I don't believe he was telling me the truth."

But if that southern business trip was a deliberate fabrication, what, then, could be the reason for a prolonged absence, so injurious to all his interests, whose real nature and purpose he had been at such pains to conceal? She had heard of men who sometimes slipped out of sight that they might plunge unhampered into debauchery, and she began to wonder if such were the case with him, or if, perhaps, he had fallen a victim to some secret vice. But against either of these suppositions both her feminine instincts and her personal liking for her employer rebelled.

"I don't see how that could be," she thought, "for he is always so nice and refined. There is no suggestion about him of anything gross or so--unclean. No, it can't be anything of that sort. And yet, he seemed so nervous, and just as if he were fighting against something with all his might--and I suppose it would be like that if he were fighting the desire to drink or take some kind of dope. But I can't believe it. I wonder if that Hugh Gordon could have anything to do with it. Well, whatever the explanation, it's evident he doesn't want people to know about his being away, and he doesn't like it to be talked about, so the thing for me to do is to keep as still as a mouse and not to let anybody else do any more talking than I can help."

Even at home, in her loyalty to her sense of duty, Henrietta said no more than to make a mere mention of her employer's absence and to reply, when her mother or sister made occasional inquiry, that he had not yet returned.

Brand had been away almost a week when the office boy brought her a card one morning and said the gentleman was particularly anxious to see her. As she looked at it and read "Hugh Gordon" her heart began to beat faster and her face flushed a sudden red.

Had he come, she wondered, to bring her news of Brand's whereabouts, or, perhaps, tidings of some serious misfortune? The apprehensive thought flashed through her mind that perhaps he would try, under threat of evil to herself or her employer, to force from her some personal or business information that he could afterward use as a lever against the architect, and she told herself that she must be very careful what she said to him.

She felt assured that he was there for no good purpose, and during the moment that she waited for the boy to bring him into her room her mind formed a swift picture of an elderly fellow, slouching and shabby, red-nosed and unshaven, bearing all the marks of a parasitic and dissipated life.

When she saw instead a well-groomed young man, wearing an English looking gray suit, advancing toward her with a quick, firm step and a self-confident air, the reversal of her preconceived ideas was so complete that for an instant she thought it must be some one else. The suggestion of a smile crossed his serious face as he met her disconcerted look and, halting beside her desk, he repeated his name.

"I have come to see you, Miss Marne, to relieve your mind of any apprehension you may feel concerning Mr. Felix Brand."

"Oh," she exclaimed, the reassurance his words gave her evident at once in her voice. "Then you have seen him? You know that he is quite well?"

His keen, dark eyes swept the room with an alert glance. On her desk glowed a vase of sunshine-colored daffodils. She remembered afterward that, while his one swift glance had seemed to take in everything in the room, it had passed over the flowers as coolly as it had over the chairs and the typewriter, and she compared it with the way Felix Brand's eyes would have lingered and feasted upon them.

"I have not seen him for several days," he replied, his gaze again straight into her eyes. He spoke rapidly, in a direct, almost blunt manner. "But I can assure you that you need to feel no anxiety about him. He is quite safe and will be back here as soon as circumstances permit."

Henrietta hesitated for an instant, in quick debate with herself as to the most prudent course to pursue. Should she try to find out all that this man knew, or, refusing to admit how much she was in the dark herself, thank him for his kindness in such a way as to make him believe she did not need his information? She was aware that already she was not so suspicious of him as she had been a few moments before. The friendly sincerity of his look and the blunt frankness of his manner compelled her into a less wary, less hostile feeling. Reminding herself again that she must be on her guard she motioned him to a chair beside her desk.

"You must know, Mr. Gordon," she said, looking at him with a gaze as direct as his own, "that your attitude toward Mr. Brand some weeks ago was not such as to make me feel, now, much confidence in your good intentions. Frankly, I find it difficult to believe that you have come here with his good in view."

Gordon's serious countenance relaxed a little and Henrietta felt herself impelled to a responsive smile, which she quickly checked.

"No," he agreed, "I can't expect you, not knowing all the circumstances, to understand that what I did then was intended for Felix Brand's good. I believed, or at least I hoped, that it would have a salutary effect upon him and induce him to turn back from a course of conduct that I foresaw would be disastrous."

He straightened up and his dark eyes, that would have been somber but for their keenness, ran quickly down over her face and figure and then rested again with a softened expression upon hers.

"I would like you to believe that, whatever was the result of what I did, I had no evil or selfish motive in doing it. Can you feel that much confidence in me, Miss Marne?"

She bent her eyes upon the desk for the moment of silence that followed his question and made effort to voice her reply in a cool, disinterested tone.

"I can understand that you might have been moved by a sense of duty toward the public welfare--if you believed in your own assertions. I gather from what you said just now that you wish to be considered Mr. Brand's friend; but that sort of thing does not agree with my idea of the loyalty there should be between friends."

His black brows drew together in a slight frown as he looked intently at her averted face. "Well," he said, more slowly than he had previously spoken, "I shall not try to justify myself. I shall only repeat that my motive was neither selfish nor malicious. I had not thought particularly, in fact, I had not thought at all then, about the public side of it. I did it solely in the hope that it would have a good effect upon Felix." He paused again for a moment and as she noted his familiar use of her employer's name she thought that, after all, the relations between them must be intimate.

"But I hope," he went on, his manner again brusque, "that you will free your mind from all suspicion as to my reasons for coming here today."

She flushed and turned a little more away, and he smiled behind his hand as he stroked his short, thick, black mustache.

"I know already more about Felix Brand and his affairs than pleases me and I am just now much more interested in my own."

She faced him with a sudden movement and asked sharply: "Do you know where he is?"

Her eyes caught an inscrutable change in his. Something almost like awe came into them and into his countenance as his gaze turned to the window and sought the blue and distant sky.

"No," he said, his voice sounding a solemn note, and repeated: "No, I do not. I do not know where he is now."

His eyes returned to her face and as he met her startled expression he exclaimed in a kindly way, leaning forward as if to reassure her: "There! I've frightened you! Please don't be alarmed. I assure you, there's nothing to be anxious about. Although I don't know positively where Felix is, just now, I do know he has suffered no harm, no real harm, and I believe, I am quite sure, he will be back here again as well as ever, before very long. I came here to tell you this."

She studied his face for a moment and somehow, against her will, the conviction came upon her that this man was moved, as he declared, by good motives.

"It was kind of you," she replied at last with a gracious smile, "and I thank you very much. I was quite anxious, but I believe what you have told me and I am greatly relieved."

He looked pleased and exclaimed impulsively: "And I thank you for your confidence in me!"

As he rose to go, his glance once more traveled quickly down over her face and figure and returned to her eyes with a look in his own that her woman's instinct knew to mean appreciation, interest, liking.

"By the way," he said, turning impulsively toward her and speaking in a quick, brusque way, "there is another matter I must not forget. It was part of my reason for coming here. There was a letter--you remember--that Felix had you write the last day he was here and then asked you not to send just then. You haven't mailed it yet, have you?"

She stared at him in astonishment and said "No," before she could take counsel of her caution.

"I didn't suppose you had. However, I happen to know, he told me, that he would like you to send it at once, just as it stands now."

Henrietta was so astounded by this revelation of the intimacy that must exist between the two men that for a moment she could not reply. For the letter was concerned with an effort Brand was making to get control of the marble quarry company in which he had invested some months before, and she knew that he was keeping the matter very secret and considered it of great importance. It had worried her more than anything else in his arrested affairs, for she hesitated to mail it without farther instructions from him and yet had feared that if she did not his plans might fall through.

Gordon went on without appearing to notice her surprise, although she felt sure that he saw it and was amused by it. "As you know, he wanted to wait a day or two for certain developments at the other end."

Henrietta nodded. "Yes, and I have not been able to find out just what happened."

"It's all right--just as Felix hoped it would be," he assured her and went on to tell her briefly what had occurred.

After his departure Henrietta found herself comparing her visitor with her employer. All her previous thought of Gordon had been in connection with Brand as the cause of his troubles, as his enemy and even his persecutor. So now, when Gordon appeared in person, it was against a contrasting background of the appearance and character of the man to whom she felt so grateful for the opportunity of livelihood amid congenial surroundings.

Gordon was much in her mind during the rest of the day; and as she traveled homeward in the afternoon, in the subway, across the ferry in the glowing sunset light, and in the clattering trolley car, her thought was busy with speculation about him, with comparison of him with Felix Brand, with recollections of what he had said and how he had looked, with conjecture as to the meaning of his expression when she asked him if he knew where Brand was.

At dinner she spoke of her caller to her mother and sister. At once they were interested and were eager to know what he was like and what Henrietta thought of him. As she answered their questions she felt her cheeks flushing when she saw their surprise that she should praise or seem to admire the man who was Felix Brand's enemy.

"I know you are surprised," she said, trying to overcome a sudden access of self-consciousness, "that he isn't at all the sort of man we thought him, or at least that I was sure he must be. But it was certainly considerate of him to come, and there was nothing at all in anything he said or did that suggested a different motive. I never was more surprised in my life than I was by his appearance. You know Mr. Brand told the reporters that he is a relative and I had supposed he must be some dissipated, disreputable sort of creature. And then in came this good-looking young man--for he is good-looking, though not so handsome as Mr. Brand--his face hasn't that look of refinement and affability. He was well-dressed and looked like a prosperous young business man, and he has such a straightforward, independent air."

"Does he look like Mr. Brand?" queried Isabella, so interested that she was forgetting her dinner.

"A little--yes. In some ways a good deal, and then again he seems so different. He is dark and his features have a family resemblance. But otherwise the two men are not alike. You know that dear expression Mr. Brand's eyes always have, so winning and affectionate, and as if he thought the world of you. Well, Mr. Gordon's eyes are large and brown, too, but they are keen and they look right through you and he flashes one glance around the room and you feel that he knows everything in it. He isn't so polished in his manners----"

"Mr. Brand has the loveliest manners of any man I ever met," Isabella interrupted. "His mission in life ought to be to travel round and show them off as a pattern for all other young men. I wish Warren could have the advantage of a few lessons."

"Bella!" exclaimed her mother reprovingly. "You ought not to speak that way of the man who is almost your husband. And Warren is such a good man, too!"

"So is Mr. Brand," Isabella replied saucily, "awfully good, just too good to be true. Tell us more about Mr. Gordon, Harry."

"Why, as I was saying, his manner isn't so polished as Mr. Brand's. In fact, he is so direct and positive that he seems a little curt, though I'm sure he doesn't mean to be. He makes you feel that he's very sincere, too. Mr. Brand seems to draw people to him without making any effort, but Mr. Gordon is more compelling and something about him makes you take an interest in him and believe in him."

"He impressed you a good deal, didn't he, Harry?" said Isabella, looking at her sister thoughtfully.

Henrietta felt her cheeks warming again and was annoyed at herself that she should blush in this way when, as she scolded herself, "there was no reason for it."

"I don't know that he did, particularly," she said defensively. "His coming was rather curious and you and mother seemed interested and wanted to know all about him."