THE MASK OF HIS COUNTENANCE
It was a curious mixture of people whom Felix Brand had bidden to the
theatre party and house-warming with which he celebrated the setting
up of his bachelor household gods in a studio apartment house. But the
varied contents of that mixture were not so much indicative of
catholic tastes in human nature as of an underlying trait of his own
character, a trait which led him to look first, in whatever he did,
for his own advantage. But whatever their differing attitudes toward
life there were few of his guests who did not follow his movements
with admiring eyes and think of him as one of Fortune's favorites.
For in this artistically decorated and luxuriously furnished apartment
there was nothing to hint that until recent years he had lived as
yoke-fellow with severest economy. The son of a school-teacher in a
Pennsylvania town, the family purse had had all that it could do to
provide for him a course in college and the training for his
profession. But at the beginning of his career he had won a rich prize
in an architectural competition, and afterwards commissions and
rewards and honors had flowed in upon him in constantly increasing
measure. While he did not yet quite merit the adjective which Isabella
Marne had applied to him, there was every promise that he would soon
be, in truth, a "famous architect."
Although he had barely entered his third decade, certain
characteristic features of his work had already won attention, and
these had been praised so much, and had begun to exercise so evident
an influence, that many looked upon him as destined to be and as,
indeed, already becoming, the leader of a new and fruitful movement in
American architecture. A Felix Brand design, whether for a dwelling, a
church, a business building, or a civic monument, was sure to be
marked by simplicity of conception, exquisite sense of proportion and
rhythmic harmony of line.
"What a perfectly charming manner he has!" said Miss Ardeen Andrews to
Henrietta Marne, who knew of her as a rising young actress. "And such
wonderful eyes! Why, there is a caress in them if he only looks at
you!"
"Yes," replied Henrietta in a matter-of-fact way, "it's a very
pleasant expression, isn't it? But it doesn't mean anything in
particular. It's just their natural expression."
"And he's not only handsome," Miss Andrews went on with enthusiasm,
"but he's the most sensitive and refined-looking man I've met in a
long time." And she flashed a glance of covert admiration across the
room at their host, who was talking with two men of such different
type as to make his own courtly manner and intellectual features
noticeable by contrast.
A little later Henrietta, passing the two men, heard them speculating,
in tones touched with an Irish brogue, as to whether or not the young
architect was already making money enough out of his profession to pay
for such surroundings as these in which he was settling himself.
"There's money enough in it when you get to the top," one of them was
saying. Henrietta remembered him as a certain district political
leader, Flaherty by name, with whom her employer had lately held
several conferences. "Money enough to buy old masters to paper your
walls with and velvet chairs to sit in for a year, and never the same
one twice. But Brand's not up to the top yet. He must have some other
jug to go to, and I'd like to know just what it is and how big it is!"
Henrietta could have told them what it was, and she was presently
reminded of it when two men were presented to her and she recognized
their names as that of the firm of brokers through which Felix Brand
had for some time been carrying on what she knew to be very profitable
operations in stocks.
"The doctor won't forget us entirely, will he, Mrs. Annister?" the
host was saying to the tall and handsome woman with iron-gray hair and
warm-colored cheeks who sat beside him at the supper table.
"I hope not; but you know I never vouch for him. Mildred impressed it
upon him that he must be here in time for supper," and she glanced at
the young replica of herself at Brand's other hand.
"Yes," confirmed the girl, "he promised very faithfully that he'd come
as soon as he could. But he was to see a case tonight in which he's
very much interested, and if he gets to thinking and reading about
that, you know, Mr. Brand, that he is just as likely as not to forget
all about us."
"Oh, yes, that case!" said her mother. "It's most curious and
interesting--one of the sort that makes you feel creepy."
"Do tell us about it then," exclaimed Ardeen Andrews, farther down the
table.
"It's a man possessed by the illusion that his dreams are the real
thing and his waking hours are imaginary. Just think what a
topsy-turvy state that must keep his family in!"
Felix Brand looked up with sudden interest, but before he could speak
a man's voice called out from the other end of the table, "The doctor
doesn't consider faith in one's dreams evidence of a pathological
state, does he, Mrs. Annister?" It was Robert Moreton, a young author,
whose name was of frequent occurrence in magazine tables of contents.
"If he does," Mrs. Moreton broke in, "how crazy he would think you,
Rob! You see, when he is writing a story," and she glanced up and down
the table, "Robert imagines it's being acted out around him, and I
have to be the heroine and the villainess and the parlor maid and the
cook and answer to all their names."
"That must give some variety to existence, Mrs. Moreton," said Brand.
"And variety is the best spice for life that I know of."
"Do you know that story of Colonel Higginson's," Moreton went on,
"called 'A Monarch of Dreams,' about a man who developed the power of
controlling his dreams and became so delighted and absorbed in them
that he gave himself up to the life he lived while asleep and allowed
his real existence to wither away until it was of no consequence at
all to him or any one else? It has always seemed to me a wonderful bit
of eerie imagination. And there are such alluring suggestions for
experiment in it!"
Felix Brand's brown eyes were fixed in a speculative stare upon the
mass of roses that glowed at the center of the table. Miss Marne,
glancing at him, knew that, whether or not he was thinking of them, he
was conscious of their beauty in every fibre of his being. "I wonder,"
he said slowly, and she saw Mildred Annister's gaze turn quickly upon
him as the girl bent forward with parted lips. "I wonder very, very
much," he repeated, "just how much one could do toward making one's
dream-people come alive. I mean, toward making the different kind of
person one sometimes is in a dream the real person when one is awake.
You know how different you seem sometimes when you are asleep, not at
all the same kind of person you are when you are awake. Now, wouldn't
it be interesting if you could make yourself be that person sometimes
after you wake up? It seems to me it would be a delightful change from
being the same person all the time. This being tied fast to yourself
year in and year out gets very monotonous."
Miss Annister gave a little gasp and leaned nearer to him, distress in
her eyes.
"Don't say that!" she begged, hardly above a whisper. "Don't even
think such things! You are you, and I wouldn't have you different for
worlds and worlds!"
Her disturbed little appeal was shielded from observation by a
vivacious feminine voice which called out simultaneously: "Please
finish my house before you turn yourself into anybody else, Mr. Brand!
You know we've only settled on the back porch and one dormer window,
so far, and I'll leave it to these good people if that's enough for a
family of six to live in!"
Henrietta smiled discreetly at her plate, for she knew along what a
tortuous path of inchoate ideas and breezy caprices Mrs. Grahame
Fenlow, upon the sightliness of whose new chauffeur she and her sister
were basing their hopes of keeping their maid of all work, had led the
architect in his attempt to design a new house for her.
"Aren't you afraid, mother," exclaimed Mark Fenlow, from his seat
beside Henrietta, "if you don't decide pretty soon whether you want
that dormer window in the cellar or the roof and whether the back
porch is to be before or behind the house, that Mr. Brand will be
driven to try a new personality, or incarnation, or--or drink, or
whatever you call it!"
"Why, here's the doctor at last," cried Felix Brand as he rose to
greet the newcomer and lead him to his seat at the table.
Dr. Philip Annister, smiling affably at the company, scarcely looked
the famous specialist in nerve diseases that he was. Short and slight
in physique, his head, when he stood beside his handsome wife, was
barely on a level with hers. Wherefore, his shoes, ever since his
wedding day, had been noticeably high of heel, and rarely was he
known to wear other head covering than a silk hat. He had cast aside
the look of abstraction which commonly possessed his thin, pale
countenance and his manner and speech of modest geniality soon won for
him the favor of all the heterogeneous company to whom he was not
already known. His wife noticed that his eyes rested frequently upon
their host and later she said to him:
"Felix is looking handsomer than ever tonight, isn't he!"
"Yes, I suppose so," he answered hesitatingly. "But, Margaret,
there's an expression growing on his face that I don't like. It's
creating a doubt about him in my mind."
"What do you mean? His manner tonight toward all this queer mixture
of people has been perfect--cordial, unassuming, delicately courteous
and friendly toward every one. And, really, Philip, I don't know a
handsomer man! His face is so refined, and those brown, caressing eyes
of his are enough to turn any girl's head. I don't wonder in the least
that Mildred is so completely in love with him. What is it you don't
like about his looks, Philip?"
"I don't quite know, and perhaps it isn't fair to him to put it into
words until I do know. It is less evident tonight, when he is all
animation and his thoughts are full of the entertainment of his
guests, than I have seen it sometimes lately. You know, Margaret,
Felix has an unusually expressive countenance. It's like a crystal
mask, and it's bound to reveal the very shape and color of his soul. I
think I begin to see signs in it of selfishness and grossness--"
"Oh, Philip! How can you! Grossness! He's the most refined----"
"You haven't announced Mildred's engagement yet, have you?" her
husband interrupted. "I'm glad of that," he went on in a relieved tone
as she shook her head, "and I hope you will not for some time."
"Mildred is beginning to look forward rather eagerly to being
married," said Mrs. Annister, smiling soberly. "I'm almost afraid
she's more in love than he is."
"I'm so glad I came tonight. It has been lovely!" Henrietta Marne at
that moment was saying to her host, at the other side of the room.
"You have enjoyed it?" and he bent upon her his brown eyes with their
look of caressing indulgence. "I'm glad of that, for I'm afraid you
don't have as many enjoyments as a girl ought to have, by right of her
youth and beauty and charm."
"I was afraid I ought not to come, because my mother is ill."
"Ah, that Puritan conscience of yours, Miss Marne! Don't be so afraid
of it when the question is nothing more than getting some innocent
pleasure out of life."
"But one isn't afraid of one's conscience. One just takes counsel of
it, or with it."
"Of course! But if one--you, for instance--yielded to it more than its
due--and it really is insatiable, you know, if you let it get the
upper hand--what a wretched affair life would be! Simply unendurable!"
"But there's always a satisfaction in doing what one ought to do, Mr.
Brand--don't you think so?--even if it is hard."
"Oh, if you like your satisfaction to taste hard and bitter! I don't!
I think it's much better to hold ourselves free to take advantage of
all the possibilities of happiness, little and big, that come our way.
It's really a duty that we owe ourselves. And, of course, if we are
happy we make others about us happy too. You, I'm sure, need enjoyment
so much that it would be a great mistake for you to throw away any
opportunity. And I'm very glad you didn't neglect this little one!"
Mrs. Fenlow and her son were at his elbow to say goodnight, and as he
shook hands with Mark, whose mother had already passed on to an
exchange of confidences concerning hairdressers with Miss Ardeen
Andrews, he laid his hand affectionately on the young man's shoulder
and said in a low tone:
"You're coming tomorrow night, Mark, of course?"
"Sure! D. V. and d. p.--God willing and the devil permitting!"
"It will be very different from this," and Brand smiled slightly, a
winning, deprecating smile, as with the least perceptible motion of
his head he indicated the company that filled his spacious drawing
room. "But a man doesn't want his relaxations to be all alike, any
more than he wants all flowers to be of the same color."