BATTLING WITH THE INVISIBLE
It seemed to his secretary the next day that Felix Brand was in a
calmer mood. She had become accustomed to read with ease his tell-tale
countenance, through which shone so plainly his states of mind and
feeling, and the first anxious glance she cast upon him with her
morning greeting relieved her forebodings of another trying day.
The signs of inward struggle were no longer manifest, though the same
dogged resolution still sharpened the lines of his face, and it was
evident that he was more able to concentrate himself upon his work
than he had been for many days. Whatever the trouble was that had
barked and snapped so incessantly about him that his combat with it
had distracted his attention and engrossed his energies, for the
present at least, it seemed to be cast aside. In the late afternoon
Henrietta heard him make an engagement over the telephone with
Mildred Annister.
Before he left the office, as he was signing the letters she had
typed, he stopped over one, after writing his name, and considered it
for a moment. It was concerned with an effort he was making to get
control of the marble quarry in which he was interested.
"No," he said, "I'll leave this matter until tomorrow. Please call my
attention to it in the morning, if I should happen not to think of it.
And there are some books, here is a list of them, which I should like
to have here, ready to consult, the first thing tomorrow. You may send
the boy for them now and leave them on my desk. These two he may buy,
but the others have him get from the library. If any of these
shouldn't be in have him buy those also, for I particularly want to
have them ready for use as soon as I get here. And I shall probably,"
he added, looking at her with his pleasant smile as he picked up his
hat and gloves, "work you very hard tomorrow looking up references and
finding things for me that I remember to have seen somewhere inside
the covers of those books."
Henrietta went home much pleased by the favorable turn affairs had
taken. The better prospect for her own personal comfort had its share
in her gratification. But it was small beside her relief that her
employer seemed to have won through his besetting harassments and, his
pleasant, winning self again, was once more earnestly devoting himself
to his affairs. For these had suffered during the last few weeks,
while his absorption in his hidden troubles not only had kept him from
devoting proper attention to them, but even had seemed to dull his
capacities. He himself had felt that his artistic perceptions, usually
so true and keen, were blunted and blurred. Upon the design for one of
his commissions, a country house in the Berkshires, he had made
beginning after beginning, only to throw each one aside in disgust and
discouragement. Nor had the various other orders in hand advanced much
better. He had not even begun the design for the capitol building,
although he was under contract to have it finished in three months.
Henrietta knew that he was beginning to feel worried about the
unsatisfactory trend of his work and she had been watching the course
of affairs with secret anxiety. She knew, too, that recently he had
been disappointed and annoyed by several business matters. He prided
himself upon his acute business sense, but lately he had blundered
more than once in his orders to his stock brokers and had lost some
money.
But, puzzled though she was by these developments in Felix Brand's
character and temperament and apprehensive of their results, if she
could have witnessed the scene that was taking place in his apartment
ten or twelve hours after he bade her that smiling farewell for the
day, far greater would have been her alarm and bewilderment.
It was well toward morning, but every light in every room was shining
at its brightest. From one room to another, from end to end of the
suite and back again, its master was walking rapidly, constantly, as
if he feared to stop for an instant or even to check his pace. The
light, muffled sound of his hurried tread barely disturbed the
silence that hung, close and heavy, over the rooms; that brooding
silence of the late hours of the night which seems to have hushed all
the sounds that ever were, but out of which almost any sound might be
born.
As he rushed through drawing room, chambers, dining room, library,
like another Wandering Jew urged pitilessly, incessantly, back and
forth in a contracted round, not another living eye did his own
encounter in the brilliantly lighted rooms. He was entirely alone. But
every now and then his voice rang sharply through the stillness in
angry, resentful, resolute tones.
"You shall not! You shall not!" he shouted, shaking his fist at the
empty air and squaring his shoulders as though he expected some
ghostly enemy to materialize from behind a door or out of the folds of
a portiere.
He threw off his coat and waistcoat and, wiping the sweat from his
face, hurried on again in his ceaseless round.
In the dining room he halted at the sideboard and filled a glass with
brandy and soda. It was his custom to drink sparingly at all times
and when alone he rarely touched liquor of any sort. So now, when he
saw how much of the brandy bottle was empty, he gave a low whistle of
amazement.
"What!" he exclaimed. "Have I drank all that tonight? And I wouldn't
know that I'd taken a drop!"
He swallowed the mixture eagerly, as if it were some elixir from which
he expected to gain new strength, and turned back upon his tramp. As
he passed through his bedroom his gaze longingly sought the bed and
his steps wavered toward it. His eyelids yearned for sleep and his
strength was ebbing. With a stiffening of his muscles and a clenching
of his fists he held himself steadily on his course.
"No, you don't," he muttered. "I won't give in! Do you hear me? I will
not give in!"
He marched on, his head thrust forward, his mouth set hard in dogged
determination and his hands clenched in his pockets. As he passed
through the library he suddenly wavered and a spasm of apprehension
crossed his face. He paused uncertainly for a moment, then strode to
the entrance door of the apartment, made sure that it was locked, and
brought the key back with him. A gleam of triumph mingled with the
fear and anxiety in his face and eyes as he turned the combination
lock of a little safe set in the wall behind a screen. The door swung
open and with a smile of exultation he put the key inside and was
about to close the door again when he stopped short, and, as if with
the flashing of some new thought, his whole face and figure sagged.
"What's the use?" he muttered disappointedly. "He probably knows this
combination, damn him, as well as I do!"
Anger rose in a quick flood and with a wrathful oath he flung the key
on the floor. His face was grimmer and more resolute than before as he
whirled about and rushed from the room. Already pale and drawn, it
went a shade whiter with the effort of will that kept him on his feet
and still moving. At the door of the drawing room his hands flew
upward to the height of his shoulders and doubled into fists. His
eyes were fixed in a blank stare and his face was working in a mortal
agony.
"Ah-h-h!" he gasped.
And then: "There!" he cried in a triumphant tone, as with one foot he
sent spinning across the room the chair beside which he had halted.
His breast was heaving and his breath coming hard as he looked this
way and that with wild eyes. Throwing open a window he put out his
head and caught the cold air upon his streaming face. The sky was
brightening with the promise of dawn.
"Good God!" he groaned as he turned back into the room. "Why did I try
to stick this out alone? Why didn't I do something, go somewhere, have
some of the fellows come here to an all-night game? Oh, I was
afraid--that's the truth, I was afraid--and you knew it, damn you, you
knew it!" he ended in angry tones.
In the library he looked wistfully toward his favorite easy chair, for
his knees trembled with weariness. "No, no, I must not stop. If I sat
down I'd go to sleep, and then----"
He wheeled about and started back. But he held his head higher and
walked with a more confident air. "I'm winning," he exclaimed, and
there was glad surety in his voice. "It was a close call, but I'm
winning! Get back to where you belong, you dog! Go back to where you
came from, damn you, and stay there! I've won, I tell you!" And he
stamped his foot and cried again, "I've won!"
But confident though he was of having won this victory, whatever it
might be, over the invisible enemy whom he seemed both to hate and to
fear, he did not yet dare to cease from his tramp. Back and forth he
still went; and presently, pausing beside the open window, he saw that
the sky was flushed with sunrise and heard the roar and rattle of
another day rising from the streets.
"A bath soon, and breakfast," he thought, "and then out for the day,
and I'll be fairly safe once more. And if things get hard, I'll motor
over to Staten Island and take Miss Marne's sister out again. That
experiment helped a lot yesterday."
He went through the rooms, putting up shades and pushing back
curtains and switching off electric lights. His face was white and
haggard and in his eyes still lingered the look of wild anxiety which
had filled them for so many hours. With hands that trembled he poured
another glass of brandy and soda. As he passed the door of his chamber
his step lagged, he turned and looked in.
"No! No!" he cried harshly, and tried to walk on. But his feet were
like lead and held him there. Once more his body stiffened for battle,
his teeth ground together and his lips shut in a straight, hard line.
He staggered a little way toward the bed, trying to hold himself back,
as if he were wrestling, with all his remnant of strength and will,
against some immaterial, compelling force. Striking out with one fist,
as at some foe beside him, he shouted thickly, "Go! Go back, I say!"
And with a supreme effort he wheeled about and with uncertain, heavy
steps moved back toward the door.
"I will not! I will not!" he muttered, his voice unsteady and
anguished. From his face had faded the determined look and his eyes,
glassy and staring, were turned upward in terrified appeal.
Even as he spoke his feet once more refused to move. They seemed
rooted to the floor, but his body, though he tried his best still to
face toward the entrance, turned again toward the bed. He caught at
the door and braced himself against it for a moment. Then his grasp
weakened and his arms fell down.
The clutching will that was battling with his moved him one step, and
then another, toward the end that he feared, though he strove so
fiercely against it that the sinews of his neck seemed about to burst
through their restraining skin. Stiffening his body, catching at
chairs and tables and putting all his strength into the effort to hold
his feet firm upon the floor, he fought with the intangible force that
gripped him.
[Illustration: HE SANK FACE DOWNWARD UPON THE BED]
"I will not! I will not!" he gasped; and with a mighty effort tore
himself from his bonds and rushed toward the door. But again viewless
hands seized him and turned him suddenly about. His haggard face
flushed to a dull red and beaded with sweat as he fought with the
unseen power that impelled him, step by step, across the room.
With breath coming in gasps, he struggled on desperately, sometimes
gaining a little space and again losing more; and seeing himself,
despite his utmost efforts, forced nearer and nearer to the goal that
he knew meant his vanquishment. Inch by inch he fought the way with
his invisible enemy to the very bedside. Even there, with his last
ounce of strength, he made a final, futile effort to break away from
his intangible captor. Then he flung up his arms and covered his face
and with a long "oh-h-h," that was half a rageful, hysterical cry and
half a moan of despair, he sank face downward upon the bed.
He had lost the battle in what he had thought to be the very hour of
victory.