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Old Isaac Flint loved but two things in all this world—power, and his daughter Catherine.
I speak advisedly in putting "power" first. Much as he idolized the girl, much as she reminded him of the long-dead wife of his youth, he could have survived the loss of her. The loss of power would inevitably have crushed and broken him, stunned him, killed him. Yet, so far as human affection could still blossom in that withered heart, shrunk by cold scheming and the cruel piracies of many decades, he loved the girl.
And so it was that when the message came in, that evening, over the telephone, the news that Kate had been injured in an auto-accident which had entirely destroyed the machine and killed Herrick, he paled, trembled, and clutched the receiver, hardly able to hold it to his ear with his shaking hand.
"Here! You!" he cried. "She—she's not badly hurt? She's living? She's safe? No lies, now! The truth!"
"Your daughter is very much alive, and perfectly safe," a voice answered. "This is Doctor MacDougal, of Haverstraw, speaking. The patient is now having a superficial scalp wound dressed by my assistant. You can speak to her, in a few minutes, if you like."
"Now! For God's sake, let me speak now! " entreated the Billionaire; but the doctor refused. Not all Flint's urging or bribing would turn him one hair's breadth.
"No," he insisted. "In ten minutes she can talk to you. Not now. But have no fear, sir. She is perfectly safe and—barring her wound, which will probably heal almost without a scar—is as well as ever. A little nervous and unstrung, of course, but that's to be expected."
"What happened, and how?" demanded Flint, in terrible agitation.
The doctor briefly gave him such facts as he knew, ending with the statement that a passing automobilist had brought the girl to him, and outlining the situation of the first-aid measures in the sugar-house. At the thought that Herrick, the drunken cause of it all, was dead and burned, Flint smiled with real satisfaction.
"Damn him! It's too good for the scum!" he muttered. Then, aloud, he asked over the wire:
"And who was the rescuer?"
"I don't know," MacDougal answered. "Your daughter didn't tell me. But from what I've learned, he must have been a man of rare strength and presence of mind. It may well be that you owe your daughter's life to his prompt work."
"I'll find him, yet. He'll be suitably rewarded," thought the Billionaire. "No matter what my enemies have called me, I'm not incapable of gratitude!"
Some few minutes later, having paced the library floor meanwhile, in great excitement, he called the doctor's house again by long-distance, and this time succeeded in having speech with his daughter. Her voice, though a little weak, vastly reassured him. Once more he asked for the outline of the story. She told him all the essentials, and finished by:
"Now, come and get me, won't you, father dear? I want to go home. And the quicker you come for me, the happier I'll be."
"Bless your heart, Kate!" he exclaimed, deeply moved. "Nothing like the old man, after all, is there? Yes, I'll start at once. I've only been waiting here, to talk with you and know you're safe. In five minutes I'll be on my way, with the racing-car. And if I don't break a few records between here and Haverstraw, my name's not Isaac Flint!"
After an affectionate good-bye, the old man hung up, rang for Slawson, his private valet, and ordered the swiftest car in his garage made ready at once, for a quick run.
Two hours later, Doctor MacDougal had pocketed the largest fee he ever had received or ever would, again; and Kate was safe at home, in Idle Hour.
On the homeward journey, Flint learned every detail of the affair, from start to finish; and again grimly consigned the soul of the dead chauffeur to the nethermost pits of Hell. Yes, he realized, he must have the body brought in and decently buried, after the coroner's verdict had been rendered; but in his heart he knew that, save for the eye of public opinion and the law, he would let those charred remnants lie and rot there, by the river bank, under the twisted wreckage of the car—and revel in the thought of that last, barbarous revenge.
Arrived at home, Flint routed specialists out of their offices, and at a large expense satisfied himself the girl had really taken no serious harm. Next day, and the days following, all that money and science could do to make the gash heal without a scar, was done. Waldron called, greatly unnerved and not at all himself; and Kate received him with amicable interest. She had not yet informed her father of the rupture between Waldron and herself, nor did he suspect it. As for "Tiger," he realized the time was inopportune for any statement of conditions, and held his peace. But once she should be well, again, he had savagely resolved this decision of hers should not stand.
"Damn it, it can't! It mustn't!" he reflected, as on the third evening he returned to his Fifth Avenue house. "Now that I'm really in danger of losing her, I'm just beginning to realize what an extraordinary woman she is! As a wife, the mistress of my establishment, a hostess, a social leader, what a figure she would make! And too, the alliance between Flint and myself simply must not be shattered. Kate is the only child. The old man's billion, or more, will surely come to her, practically every penny of it. Flint is more than sixty-three this very minute, he's a dope-fiend, and his heart's damned weak. He's liable to drop off, any moment. If I get Kate, and he dies, what a fortune! What a prize! Added to my interests, it will make me master of the world!
"Then, too, this new Air Trust scheme positively demands that Flint and I should be bound together by something closer than mere financial association. I've simply got to be one of the family. I've got to be his son-in-law. That's a positive necessity! God, what a fool I was at Longmeadow, to have taken those three drinks, and have been piqued at her beating me—to have let my tongue and temper slip—in short, to have acted like an ass!"
Ugly and grim, he puffed at his Londres. Vast schemes of finance and of conquest wove through his busy, plotting brain. Visions of the girl arose, too, tempting him still more, though his chill heart was powerless to feel the urge of any real, self-sacrificing or devoted love. Sensual passion he knew, and ambition, and the lust of power; nothing else. But these all opened his eyes to the vast blunder he had committed, and nerved him to reconquest of the ground that he had lost.
"I can win her, yet," reflected he, as his car swung into the long and brilliant night-vista of Fifth Avenue. "I know women, and I understand the game. Flowers, letters, telephone calls, attention every day—every hour, if need be—these are the artillery to batter down the strongest fortresses of indifference, even of dislike. And she shall have them all—all and more. Wally, old chap, you've never been beaten at any game, whether in the Street or in the pursuit of woman. You'll win yet; you're bound to win! And Kate shall yet open the door to you, toward wealth and power and position such as never yet were seen on earth!"
Thus fortified by his own determination, he slept more calmly that night. And, on the morrow, his campaign began.
It lasted but a week.
At the end of that time, a friendly little note from Idle Hour told him, frankly and in the kindest manner possible, that—much as she still liked and respected him—Catherine could not, now or ever, think of him in any other way than as a friend.
Stunned by this body-blow, "Tiger" first swore with hideous blasphemies that caused his valet to retreat precipitately from the famous, nymph-frieze bedchamber; then ordered drink, then walked the floor a while in a violent passion; and finally knit up his decision.
"By God!" he swore, shaking his fist in the direction of Englewood. "She's balky, eh? She won't, eh? But I say she will! And if I can't make her, there's her father, who can. Together we can break this stiff-necked spirit and bring her to time. Hm! Fancy anybody or anything in this world setting up opposition to Flint and Waldron, combined! Just fancy it, that's all!
"So then, what's to do? This: See her father and have a heart-to-heart talk with him. It's obvious she hasn't told him, yet, the real state of affairs. I doubt if the old idiot has even noticed the absence of my ring from her finger. And if he has, she's been able to fool him, easily enough. But not much longer, so help me!
"No, this very morning he shall hear from me, the whole infernal story—he shall learn his daughter's unreasonable rebellion, the slight she's put upon me and her opposition to his will. Then we shall see—we shall see who's master in that family, he or the girl!"
With this strong determination in his superheated mind, Waldron rang up Flint, asked for a private talk, at eleven, in the Wall Street office, and made ready the mustering of his arguments; his self-defense; his appeals to Flint's every sense of interest and liking; his whole plea for the resumption of the broken betrothal.
And Catherine, all this time of convalescence—what were her thoughts, and whither were they straying? Not thoughts of Waldron, that is sure, despite his notes, his telephoning, his flowers, his visits. Not to him did they wander, as she sat in her sunny bedroom bay-window, looking out over the great, close cropped lawn, through the oaks and elms, to the Palisades and the sparkling Hudson beneath.
No, not to Waldron. Yet wander they did, despite her; and with persistence they followed channels till then quite unknown to her.
What might these channels be? And whither, I ask again, did the girl's memories and fancies, her wondering thoughts, her vague, half-formulated longings, lead?
You, perhaps, can answer, as well as I, if you but remember that—Billionaire's daughter though she was, and all unversed in the hard realities of life—she was, at heart and soul, very much a woman after all.