and of darker omen? What had Hugh Gordon meant by those two or
three curt, unconsidered sentences that seemed to hint at some uncanny
fate toward which Brand was hastening? And what would be the
architect's demeanor now? Would it be such that she could not stay
longer in his employ? With all the financial risk involved would she
yet feel that she must go forth and look for another position?

This last question did not long remain unanswered in her mind. Brand's
manner, it was true, had not lost entirely its habitual suavity and
polish. Formerly she had thought these to be the genuine expression of
the innate refinement and kindness of his nature. But now, as if some
inner corrosion were eating its way outward, she found that they had
ceased to be anything more than the thinnest veneer, through which
often broke, in words, or manner, or look, peevish irritation or
sullen anger.

"It's as if he were just seething inside," said Henrietta to herself
after he had been back several days, "about something or other that
makes him too angry to control himself. Well, that's no reason why he
should take it out on me, as he did today. I wish I could see Mr.
Gordon again. Well, anyway, I can't stand this any longer. I'm sure
he'd advise me not to. Mr. Brand is much worse than he was before he
went away, and he looks as if he were the bad, base man that Hugh
Gordon says he is. I shall tell him at once that he'll have to find
another secretary."

When she told her mother and sister that she had decided to look for
another position, she had to face a chorus of amazed protests and she
found it difficult to convince them of the soundness of her reasons.

"He seems to have lost all sense of honor," she told them. "In all the
business that he carries on through me by correspondence and sometimes
by my seeing people, too, he lies and cheats even when I can't see,
sometimes, that he expects to gain anything by it. And I don't want to
be a party to that kind of thing any longer, even if I am only a sort
of a machine. And he is growing so ill-tempered and irritable and rude
that I really can't endure it."

"Oh, well, don't worry about it, Harry," said Isabella with her usual
optimism. "You'll soon get another position. Please make it part of
your bargain next time that your employer must come over here and take
me out motoring quite frequently, if not oftener."

"That reminds me, Bella, that I want to ask you not to go with Mr.
Brand ag