itful 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.