CHAPTER I
Felix Brand Has a Mysterious Experience

Felix Brand awoke with a start and looked about him with a puzzled stare. And yet there was nothing unfamiliar in what met his gaze. The bed wherein he lay and its luxurious appointments were of his own recent buying. He had himself designed the decorations of the room and selected its furnishings. As his eyes leaped from one object to another his bewildered glance seemed to slide unnotingly over the furniture, and the draperies, walls and pictures, indicative of a fastidious taste, that made up the interior of his bedroom.

But it was no more than a few seconds until his consciousness came again into accord with his surroundings. His look of perplexity quickly changed into one of satisfaction and amusement, and he exclaimed aloud:

“Good Lord, how vivid that was! Never before has it been so strong!” He rubbed his eyes, slapped his arms and moved about in the bed as if to be assured of his bodily intactness and smiled again as he thought:

“No, I’m here, all right, and I’m I, as usual! But it seems as if I’d only have to close my eyes to swing back into it again!”

His eyelids dropped as if in response to his thought, but quickly opened again, with a little frown, as he murmured, “No, I guess not. This is better!”

He rested his head upon his locked hands and stretched himself full length upon his back, as his eyes roved about the beautiful interior. They dwelt caressingly upon its details with the pride and pleasure of the creator and the satisfaction of the owner for whom possession has yet the bloom of newness.

It was a handsome face, framed in dark, waving hair, that thus lay back against the whiteness of the pillow; dark skinned, smooth shaven, squarish in its general outline, with regular, pleasing features; a mobile face, whose whole seeming would depend upon the expression by which it should be lighted. Just now it looked sensitive, amiable, satisfied, and, at the first glance, one would be sure that it bespoke a mind and soul of fine fibre. But if one looked a second time and more searchingly one would perceive some clouding and coarsening of that refinement, signs not yet marked enough to tell their story openly and not likely to be noted by the ordinary observer, but able to make the keener student of the human countenance doubt his first impressions.

“It’s queer how much more vivid and real those dreams are nowadays – every time one comes it’s stronger than ever it was before,” Felix Brand’s thought was running as he made ready for the day. The illusion that had possessed him as he awoke surged through him again and again with such force that it seemed almost strong enough to sweep his consciousness out of his actual surroundings. Razor in hand, ready to begin the task of shaving, a fresh onset, still more insistent, went whirling through his brain and sent a sudden numb sensation down his arm. He shook himself irritatedly.

“Confound it!” he muttered. “Can’t I keep awake this morning? But I’m not sleepy – I’m as wide awake as ever I was! It’s queer!”

He frowned at his reflection in the mirror, then suddenly his countenance glowed with interest. “I wonder if I could – I believe I’ll try!” he exclaimed aloud. “Jove! What an experience it would be! It’s worth trying!”

He turned to lay the razor down and felt his eyes fasten themselves in a devouring stare upon its bright blade. An instant, and he was startled by the sound of a strange voice which he caught just as it was dying out of his ears, a strong, vigorous voice, speaking in tones of authority.

“Who’s that?” he cried out, glancing about the room in surprise. What he had heard had sounded like a name and his thought snatched at it as it faded quickly away from him. “Hugh Gordon!” he repeated softly, and said it over to himself as he gazed dazedly about the room. Well might he turn the name over and over in his mind and wonder about it, for it was destined to become to him the most hateful thing in the world.

“Nonsense! What’s the matter with me this morning?” and he shrugged impatiently. “I don’t know anybody named ‘Hugh Gordon’ and there’s nobody in here anyway. The sound must have come from the hall, or, maybe, from the street.”

His eyes fell upon the clock and he started with surprise. “Why, it can’t be that late! Only a moment ago I looked and it was – I couldn’t have seen straight or something’s gone wrong with it. Anyway, I’d better get a move on.”

He turned briskly to the mirror to resume the operation of shaving and stared again as he put out his hand to pick up the razor. For it was not where he had laid it down a moment before. His wondering glance quickly discovered it on the other side of the dressing table, and bewildered amazement overspread his countenance. It was laden with the results of recent use.

“The devil!” he gasped. “I hadn’t shaved! I hadn’t even lathered!”

But the half fearful look of inquiry he darted into the mirror showed his face to be freshly shaven, and in the usual manner, except the upper lip, where had been left the faint, dark stubble of a mustache.

CHAPTER II
“Like Ottar of Roses Out of an Otter”

“Breakfast is a little late, Harry. Delia is in one of her introspective moods and it has made her slow. I hope you won’t miss your boat!”

She turned an anxious face toward her sister, who was entering the room, and Henrietta Marne smiled reassuringly, as she set down a suitcase, laid her hat and coat upon a chair, and replied in a hearty, cheerful tone:

“No, indeed! I’ve plenty of time. And I was glad to have an extra five minutes with mother. Do you think she’s better than she was yesterday? Bella, I’m afraid I ought not to go to Mr. Brand’s theatre party tonight!” And her countenance clouded with anxiety as they seated themselves at the breakfast table.

“Don’t think of missing it, Harry! Mother will be all right. She seems a lot better this morning.”

“Y-e-s, I thought so, but I’m afraid she’ll miss me tonight. It always seems to please her when I come home in the evening.”

“Of course, dear, we’ll both miss you! You’re the man of our household, you know, and you go out and battle with the world every day and bring us a fresh breath from it every night!”

“And you always ‘meet me with a smile,’” laughed Henrietta.

“Of course! And we’ll be twice as glad to see you tomorrow night, and we’ll smile twice as big a smile, because you’ll have such a lot of things to tell us.”

“Mr. Brand has a curious effect upon me that I don’t quite like.” Henrietta frowned thoughtfully into her coffee cup while she hesitated, as if choosing words for further speech. In shirtwaist, linen collar and cloth skirt she looked trim, well groomed, alert. Fair-haired and fresh-colored, her expression capable, composed and sweet-natured, she was what a Scotchman would call “a bonny lass.” Her sister, also fair, was smaller of mold and daintier of look and manner. She appeared a little older, but her features were finer and more regular and a twinkle of humor barely hid itself in the corner of her blue eye, as if ready to spring forth at the first encouragement.

“This begins to sound romantic!” chaffed Isabella. “Let’s hope he’s at least a pirate in disguise.”

“No, let’s not. Because then he’d sail away and I’d have to hunt a new job. And it is such a nice place, Bella! I don’t believe another girl in my whole class just fell into such good luck as I did. He seems pleased with my work, too.”

“I know he is, Harry, because Mrs. Annister told me last week that Mr. Brand thinks he has found a jewel of a secretary – the best he’s ever had. I was waiting” – and a gleam of mirth sparkled in her eyes as she smiled fondly upon her sister – “to tell you until some day when you’d be feeling blue. But I just couldn’t wait any longer.”

Henrietta flushed with pleasure. “I’m so glad to know that! If he’ll just keep on being satisfied a few months longer, we’ll have this place paid for!”

“Oh, we’re going to pull through all right!” Isabella exclaimed, hopeful conviction in her tones and smile. Then she puckered her brows and did her best to look doubtful and alarmed as she went on in a tragic half whisper, her blue eyes dancing: “If he doesn’t turn pirate and sail away in the meantime, or, maybe, make a villain out of you, with this wicked influence you’re getting alarmed about, so that you’ll maybe steal your own salary and run away with it and leave mother and me to star-r-ve! To think that a famous architect should be just oozing badness all around him like that – as Mark Twain said, ‘like ottar of roses out of an otter’ – at the same time that he’s evolving such beautiful things out of his brain! Ugh! It’s awful!”

Henrietta laughed, a short, chuckling laugh that suggested deeper amusement than it expressed. “Is there anything you wouldn’t make fun of, Bella? Very likely it isn’t he, after all, but just my own innate wickedness coming to the surface. It’s only that I feel a great desire to amuse myself, and am more willing to be selfish about it than I used to be. Three months ago I wouldn’t have gone to this theatre party, with mother ill and you alone with her. I know I’m a beast to do it, but I do want to go dreadfully, and – ”

“And you’re going, and you’re not to coddle your conscience any more about it. It’s all right, and we’re all right, and mother and I would feel we were two beasts if you stayed away on our account. What makes you think Mr. Brand responsible for this awful depravity? Because he invited you to his house-warming?”

“Oh, no! It was thoughtful and lovely of him to include poor little me among his guests, and I’m as grateful as – Cinderella. But he sometimes says some little thing, in connection with what we are doing, about the pleasure there is in beautiful things and how it and the joy one ought to get out of life enlarge and deepen one’s existence. And then I begin to feel, away down inside of me, a longing for pleasure, and as if I could reach out and grasp all sorts of – of things, just for my own enjoyment.”

“And that makes you feel dreadfully wicked!” Isabella’s laugh tinkled through the room, a lighter, merrier sound than her sister’s. “Dear me! As if we didn’t all feel that way once in a while!”

“You never do,” Henrietta interrupted.

“Don’t inquire too deeply into my feelings, unless you want to be shocked. Suppose we have some hot toast to cheer us up after this awful confession. Delia,” to the maid who entered in response to her ring, “have you some fresh toast ready?”

“The toast is awfully good this morning, Delia,” said Henrietta smiling at her. “It’s always nice, but it’s particularly good, exactly right, this morning.”

“Thank you, Harry!” said Isabella as the maid disappeared. “I’m so glad you said it. Maybe it will make her feel better. Did you see that determined, dare-and-die look on her face? I’m sure something’s going to happen!”

“And we’ve raised her wages twice already,” the other exclaimed, as her face took on the same anxious expression that had just clouded her sister’s.

“Yes, and we can’t pay her any more than we’re giving her now. She isn’t worth it and we couldn’t afford it if she were.”

“Just as we’ve begun to feel sure she was satisfied and would stay. Oh, Bella! It’s too bad! But maybe it’s no worse than it was the last time we got scared, when her cousin was married and she wanted a day off. You remember, she had two days of the introspective mood then.”

“Thank you, Delia! It’s done to a turn!” and Isabella smiled sweetly at the returning maid, who retreated a step and stood still, fumbling her tray, an embarrassed, determined look upon her face.

“It’s perfectly lovely,” chimed in Henrietta with enthusiasm.

The girl shuffled from one foot to the other but her expression did not relax. Isabella cast an “I-told-you-so” look at her sister and glanced expectantly at the maid.

“What is it, Delia?”

“I’m thinkin’, Miss Marne, you’d better be lookin’ for a new girl.”

“Why, what’s the matter? You don’t want to leave us, do you?”

“No, miss, I don’t want to, an’ that’s the truth. But I don’t think I’ll be stayin’ any longer than you can get another girl.”

“What’s the trouble, Delia?”

“It’s lonesomeness, Miss Marne. It’s that respectable out here that there’s niver a policeman comes along this street for days at a time. An’ the milkman comes around that early I niver see him, an’ anyway he’s elderly an’ the father of four. An’ it’s so high-toned, there ain’t a livery stable anywhere, an’ so there’s none of them boys to pass a word with once in a while. An’ there’s only the postman, an’ him small and married.”

There was silence for a moment while the maid shuffled her feet and turned her tray about and the sisters bit their lips. Then Isabella exclaimed, in a tone of brisk sympathy:

“Yes, Delia, I understand how you feel, and I don’t blame you at all, but – ”

“Don’t make up your mind right away, Delia,” Henrietta broke in. “Think about it a little longer. Maybe something will happen.”

“And only think, Harry,” Isabella groaned, as Delia left the room, “what a wonderful bargain that real estate agent made us think we were getting, just because there were so many restrictions there could never be anything or anybody objectionable within a mile of us!”

“I had an inspiration just in the nick of time,” Henrietta replied. “Mrs. Fenlow told me, when she was in the office the other day, waiting for Mr. Brand, that she is going to move her garage to this end of her property, which you know is just a block away, with an entrance from this street – she hoped it wouldn’t annoy us – and she said she was going to have a new chauffeur. And we can hope, Bella, that he’ll be young and tall and handsome and inclined to be flirtatious with good-looking maids who sometimes work in front door-yards nearby. Why, here’s Billikins! You naughty doggie, where have you been?”

A white fox terrier had bounded into the room and was giving her exuberant greeting, having stopped first to drop at her feet a rag-doll that he carried in his mouth. “There, that will do,” she laughed as he sprang to her lap, and thence to her shoulder and testified his overflowing affection with voice and tongue. “Get down now and take care of your babykins!”

“I must go now,” she declared, and, rising, began putting on hat and coat. “I’ll just run upstairs and kiss mother good-bye again. If anything should happen, Bella, or should you want me to come home for any reason, you can ’phone me at the office until five o’clock, and after that at Dr. Annister’s. Mrs. Annister, you know, is going to chaperon Mildred and me. Wasn’t it sweet of her to ask me to stay all night with them!”

Five minutes later she came hurrying downstairs again, and Isabella, waiting for her at the front door, put the suitcase into her hand, pressed an arm about her waist, and gave her a farewell greeting.

“Have just as good a time as you can, Harry, dear,” she said gaily, “so you’ll have all the more to tell mother and me tomorrow night!”

The morning sun shone down through the golden autumn foliage of the maple trees that lined the street, and now irradiated Henrietta’s figure and then dyed it somberly as she passed with rapid step through open space and shadow. Isabella watched her progress down the quiet road toward the avenue, half a dozen blocks away, whence came the clang of street cars and the rattle of traffic. But the girl turned now and then and cast an eager glance in the other direction.

“I’m so glad she could go tonight,” Isabella was thinking. “She works so hard and she doesn’t have many pleasures – neither do I! But I don’t mind – very much!” She cast another glance up the street and caught sight of a smallish man’s figure bending one-sidedly under a burden of other people’s joys and sorrows as he passed in and out of the gateways in the next block. A pleased smile brightened her face and she turned back to watch her sister’s progress.

“There! She was just in time to catch that car! She’s just a brick, Harry is! What a funny notion about Felix Brand! If it was little Bella, now – ” She threw up her head saucily and danced a step or two as she faced about to see how near the postman had come.

“‘An’ him small an’ married!’” she repeated to herself and laughed softly as she watched his slight, burdened figure on its slow progress. “Poor Delia! If I was in her place I’m afraid I’d flirt with him anyway!”

She ran down the walk to the gate and greeted him with a merrily smiling, “Good morning.”

“Only one this morning, Miss Marne,” he said, smiling back at her, and then added, as he saw her face brighten, “but it’s the one you want, I guess!”

“Yes,” she gaily replied, “you’re always very welcome when you bring me a letter like this!”

She was keenly conscious of the caress in her hand as she held the letter in close clasp. Once inside the door again, she pressed the missive softly to her cheek as she whispered, “Dear Warren! You dear boy! I just knew you were writing to me yesterday, and you didn’t disappoint me!”