"THERE IS NOT ROOM FOR US BOTH"
"What shall I do?" Henrietta Marne exclaimed aloud as she looked
despairingly at the papers that littered her desk. "Here are half a
dozen letters, this morning, that ought to have his immediate
attention, to say nothing of all the others that I've got stacked away
in this drawer. Well, I'll just have to keep on as I've done before
and answer them in my own name, saying that Mr. Brand is temporarily
out of the city and as soon as he returns, etc. If he doesn't come
back soon," she grumbled on as she seated herself at the typewriter,
"I'll be as hysterical as Mildred is, though I'm not in love with
him."
She did what she could with the morning's mail, looking at one
envelope as she carefully put it away unopened, with more than a
little interest and curiosity, as she saw on its upper corner the firm
name of "Gordon and Rotherley." After she had finished the letter
writing she busied herself for an hour with such duties as it was
possible for her to take up.
The architect's suite of offices was on an upper floor of a high
building and from its windows one's vision soared far over the city
southward and westward. Henrietta paused now and then in the course of
her work to forget her anxieties in the sights and thoughts that
greeted her in that wide view. Down below, at the bottom of the street
canyons, people and vehicles were rushing back and forth.
But her eyes never rested long upon them. Rather, they traveled slowly
out over the mighty plain of roofs, broken by chimneys and spires, by
great, square buttes of buildings, by domes, turrets and towers,
across the bay, gleaming silver-white or glowing copper-red in the
sun, on to where the swelling hills of Staten Island loomed dimly
against the horizon.
In the brilliant sunshine a thousand plumes of cloud-white steam waved
gaily above the castellated plain of roofs and shook out their
tendrils in the breeze. "Peace pipes" Henrietta sometimes called them
to herself, as she thought of all that their fragile beauty, forever
dissolving and forever being renewed, meant to the city beneath them.
She liked to think of them, as she watched them curling and waving
upward toward the blue, as a sign and compact of earth's peace and
good-will.
Her bent of mind was much more practical than imaginative, but she
could never look out over this scene without feeling her nerves thrill
with vague consciousness of the titanic energies ceaselessly grinding,
striving, achieving, beneath that surface of roofs and towers. And
now, as always when she stopped to gaze from her window for a few
moments, she felt her own pulses quicken in response and her own
inward being stir, as if those waving white plumes were trumpet calls
to activity.
She turned from the window, more restless than before, impatient with
the necessity of merely sitting there and waiting. In Brand's private
room the books she had got for him three weeks before still lay ranged
upon his desk, in readiness for his return at any moment. In her spare
hours she had been reading some of them herself and now she went to
get one as the best way in which to put in her time. As she brought it
back to her own room her thoughts, as they did a hundred times a day,
hovered over and around her various speculations concerning the
mystery of her employer's absence.
"I wonder," they presently ran, "if it could be possible that he is
hiding somewhere in the city just to indulge in some sort of orgy."
And this time denial of such a possibility did not, as formerly,
spring up spontaneously in her mind. "I don't like to think he could
be that sort of a man," she temporized with her budding doubt, "for he
always seems so refined and thoroughly nice, and he's always been such
a perfect gentleman to me. But it's evident that Mr. Gordon, who knows
him so well, hasn't a very high opinion of him, except in his art."
The telephone broke in upon her musing, and as she put the receiver to
her ear and said "hello" she was almost as much astonished as
delighted to hear in reply the voice of Felix Brand himself. He told
her that he had just got home, after another beastly trip into the
back woods of West Virginia, where he had had an accident. He had
slipped and sprained his ankle--no, it was nothing serious, and was
all right now, but it had kept him a prisoner for nearly two weeks in
a mountain cabin a thousand miles from anywhere, and he would be at
the office as soon as he had had his luncheon.
Glad as she was that he was there once more to take up the matters
that needed his attention so badly, Henrietta was almost afraid to
face him, when she heard his voice in the outer room, lest there might
be that in his appearance which would give form and force to the
doubts that were stirring in her mind.
But he seemed no different from his usual, affable and well-dressed
self. He wore, in all seasons, very dark or black clothing, which was
always in perfect condition, and fitted his well-proportioned figure
trimly and closely rather than with the looser English cut. His dark
eyes looked down upon her with their usual caressing smile and his
clean-shaven face, with its finely modeled, regular features, was as
handsome, as refined, as ever.
But, no,--his secretary was conscious of something in its expression
she had never noticed there before. What with the rejoicing that
filled her heart and the work that kept her hands and brain busy all
the rest of the day, she had not time to think what it was, or to give
it any definite form in her thoughts, until her homeward trip by
subway, ferry and trolley gave her leisure to scan closely the
happenings of the afternoon.
Even then she merely said to herself that there was something in his
face and eyes that did not seem quite like him, something that was not
so "nice" as he had always seemed to be. She did not know enough about
the evil undercurrents of life to give the thing more specific
definition. But she did know that, whatever it was, it stirred, deep
within her, a faint sense of repulsion.
"Did you get my letter?" was one of the first things he said to her.
"No, Mr. Brand, I've heard nothing at all from you since you left."
"You didn't? That's queer. I gave it to the porter to mail and he
probably forgot all about it. I went away so hurriedly I didn't have
time to write until after I got aboard the train. There were some
directions in it about the work here. Well, we'll have to go back and
take things up where we left off. And the first thing is that letter I
wrote and asked you not to send. Where is it?"
"Oh, I ventured to mail that--I knew how important it was, and I found
out enough about the business to feel sure you would want me to."
"You did! How fortunate!"
"Then it was all right? I am so glad! But I don't deserve all the
credit. Your friend, Mr. Hugh Gordon, was here----"
"What! That fellow? Did he dare to come here?"
The start, the sudden turn, the sharp exclamation with which Brand
broke into her sentence were so different from his habitual manner of
deliberate movement and courteous speech that Henrietta gazed at him
in amazement. Surprise and indignation sat upon his countenance.
"Why, yes," she faltered. "He was here several times. The first time,
a few days after you left, he told me he knew you wanted that letter
sent."
She went on to repeat what Gordon had told her and ended with: "Of
course, I didn't take his word for it entirely, but after what he told
me I was able to find out enough to make me feel sure it was the right
thing to do."
"You did quite right," he told her cordially. "But I am surprised to
learn of his doing, for me, a friendly act like that. You said he was
here afterwards?"
"Yes, several times. He came to tell me that you were quite safe and
well and would return before long. I was very glad to have the
assurance, for, of course, I couldn't help being anxious."
He opened his mouth as if to speak, closed it again suddenly, then, as
he busied his hands with some papers on his desk, took sudden
resolution and, though his face paled, said in a casual way:
"Did he tell you where I was?"
"He said he didn't know where you were, but that he did know
positively that if anything should happen to you he would be the
first person to know anything about it. I felt so much less anxious
after that."
"Yes, it was quite true, what he said," Brand assented slowly. He
hesitated again, as if on the verge of farther speech, and Henrietta
waited. After a moment he turned to her a face out of which he seemed
purposely to have forced all expression and asked:
"How did he impress you? Do you think he looks like me? Some people
say he does."
"Oh, he impressed me very favorably, indeed. He seemed so sincere
and so kind and so much in earnest. No, I didn't think he looked
like you, except in a general way. His features, perhaps, are
something like yours, but he himself is so different, his manner,
his expression--everything."
She spoke interestedly, the color rising in her cheeks, and Brand
watched her narrowly. "Oh, that reminds me," she exclaimed, "there's a
letter for you from him. It's in my desk."
She went to get it and as her employer's gaze followed her his eyes
widened and his face grew ashen. "My God!" he muttered, and there was
consternation in his whispered tone. Then sudden anger flashed over
him. Henrietta felt it quivering in his tones as he said, when she
gave him the envelope:
"Thank you, Miss Marne. You did just right about mailing that letter,
and I am much pleased that you did. But hereafter don't trust that
fellow Gordon in any way. For all his pretense of friendship, he is
the worst enemy I have and would stop at nothing to injure me.
Hereafter he must not be allowed to enter these rooms. Will you please
tell the boy that these are my orders--that Hugh Gordon must be put
out at once if he attempts to come inside my door again."
Henrietta noticed that the architect took the letter she gave him with
a hand that trembled slightly, cast at it a single frowning, hostile
glance and hastily but carefully put it away in his breast pocket. She
remembered that just so had he looked at the previous letter from
Gordon, and with just the same angry care had put it away unopened.
In that inner pocket it remained untouched, just as had the former
one, by turns searing his very heart with impotent anger and chilling
it with fear, until a late hour of the night, when he sat alone before
his library fire. Then, at last, with the look and manner of a man
forced to touch a loathed object, he took it out and opened it.
"Felix Brand, I have come to a decision," the letter
abruptly began. "It must be either you or I. Until lately I
thought there might be room for us both. But there isn't. If
you had paid any attention to what I told you before, had
shown any remorse for the evil you have done, or any
intention of reforming your conduct, I might have come to a
different conclusion. I will say more than that. If you had
felt in your soul the desire to get yourself together and be
a real man instead of a source of pollution, and had shown
in your thoughts and actions the willingness and the ability
to try to make yourself over, I would have recognized your
right to live.
"In that case, I would have gone, perhaps not willingly, but
feeling it right to go, back to where I came from, and I
would have let you alone. At least, I would have tried to do
that, because I give you full credit for your genius, of
which I have none, and know its value to the world. But I
might not have succeeded. For I have tasted life and found
it good and the desire to live, the will to live, is so
strong within me that it might have been stronger than the
sense of my duty, of your right, or anything else.
"But it is useless to speculate about that, because you grow
worse instead of better. You are like one of those people
who, apparently unharmed themselves, carry about with them
the germs of typhoid and scatter destruction wherever they
go. The sooner the world is rid of you the better for it,
and the better for you, too.
"You will be surprised, and probably angry, to hear from
your secretary that I have visited your office. I went,
primarily, because I wanted to meet Miss Marne, but also
because I knew she ought to mail that letter and, finally,
because I wanted to reassure her about your absence and
prevent any measures being taken to search for you. The
first reason is none of your affair and on the other two
counts you ought to be grateful to me, though I don't
suppose you will be. I took some trouble to find out about
the matters on which that letter bore, because I knew how
important you considered them. You may find it difficult to
believe, but it is true that, although I despise and loathe
you, I did not wish to be responsible for such smash-up of
your plans as longer delay in the sending of your letter
would have caused. The bond between us is too close, Felix
Brand, for me not to feel compassion for you sometimes.
"I could have kept you away longer this time if I had not
felt sorry for Miss Annister. It was on her account that I
let you return when I did. Don't make her suffer that way
again. If you don't give her beforehand some sort of
plausible preparation for your next absence--for there will
be another, and that before long--I shall enable her father
to find out some plain truths about you that may complicate
matters for you in that quarter.
"My mind is made up, Felix Brand. There is not room in the
world for both you and me. I shall try not to hurt you
publicly again, because it does no good. And efficient
measures are the only ones that appeal to me. But I am going
to do my best to push you off the edge for good and all. I
have doubted and hesitated and argued the matter over and
over with myself and tried to see some way of compromise.
But you will not come my way and I loathe yours. And you
know quite well that you yourself are responsible for the
whole business, even for the fate that awaits you. You will
merely suffer the consequences of your own actions. For I
believe I shall win. I know that you will put up a good
fight, for we have fought before, and, so far, you have won
oftener than I have. But in the end, I shall win. I dare say
you will think it impertinent in me to add that I am
convinced it will be for your good, as well as for the
world's benefit, that I should win. Nevertheless, I do think
that very thing and so I can still declare myself,
"Yours sincerely,
"HUGH GORDON."
Felix Brand read this letter with an interest that made him, in spite
of his abhorrence, go through it a second time before he lifted his
eyes from its pages. For him its mysterious threats needed no
explanation and as he sensed the full meaning of the fate it
predicted, angry horror swept over him.
He shuddered as he glanced apprehensively about him, as though fearing
to see take shape out of the air the intangible force with which, on
that other night three weeks before, he had fought to the utmost of
his strength, only to be overcome at last. The memory of that fierce
struggle was upon him now, chilling his veins and clutching his heart
with terror. And he would have to fight that invisible, relentless
power over and over again to save himself from the black-magic destiny
that threatened. Then, suddenly, fear and horror were swept away by a
frenzy of rage that ramped through him all the more fiercely because
there was nothing upon which it could wreak itself.
"You thief!" he cried, glaring about him with bloodshot eyes. "You
hypocrite, to set yourself up as better than I am! Do you hear me?
You hypocrite, thief, murderer!"
The exaltation of his anger gave him fresh strength and new confidence
in himself and he tore the letter into bits and ground them beneath
his heel as he shouted:
"This is what will happen to you! It's what you deserve and what
you'll get, you damned thief!"