CHAPTER XVIII.
FLINT AND WALDRON PLAN.
"Tiger" Waldron's interview with old man Flint, regarding Catherine'sbreaking of the engagement, was particularly electric. Promptly at theappointed hour, Waldron appeared, shook hands with the older man, satdown and lighted a cigar, then proceeded to business.
"Flint," said he, without any ado, "I've come here to tell you some veryunpleasant news and to ask your help. Can you stand the one, and give methe other?"
The Billionaire looked at him through his pince-nez, poised on thatvulture-beak, with some astonishment. Then he smiled nervously, showinghis gleaming tooth of gold, and answered:
"Yes, I guess so. What's wrong?"
"What's wrong? Everything! Catherine has broken our engagement!"
For a moment old Flint sat there motionless and staring. Then, movinghis head forward with a peculiar, pecking twitch that still furtherenhanced his likeness to a buzzard, he stammered:
"You--you mean--?"
"I mean just what I say. Your daughter has severed the betrothal.Haven't you noticed my ring was gone from her finger?"
"Gone? Bless my soul, no--that is, yes--maybe. I don't know. But--butat any rate, I thought nothing of it. So then, you say--she's broken itoff? But, why? And when? And--and tell me, Wally, what's it all about?"
"Listen, and I _will_ tell you," Tiger answered. "And I'll give it toyou straight. I'm partly at fault. Mostly so, it may be. Let me assumeall the blame, at any rate. I'm not sparing myself and have no intentionof doing so. My conduct, I admit, was beastly. No excuses offered. All Iwant to do, now, is to make the _amende honorable_, be forgiven, andhave the former status resumed."
Thus spoke Waldron. But all the time his soul lay hot within him, athaving so to humble himself before Flint; at being thus obliged to eatcrow, and fawn and feign and creep.
"If I didn't need your billion, old man," his secret thought was, as heeyed Flint with pretended humility, "you might go to Hell, for all ofme--you and your daughter with you, damn you both!"
The Billionaire sat blinking, for a moment. Then, picking up a penciland idly scrawling pothooks on the big clean sheet of blotting-paperthat covered his reference-book table, beside which the men weresitting, he asked:
"Well, what's the trouble all about? What are the facts? I must havethose, in full, before I can guarantee to do anything toward changing mydaughter's opinion. Much as I deplore her action, Wally, I don't knowwhether she's right or wrong, till you tell me. Now, let's have it."
"I will," the other answered; and he was as good as his word. Realizingthe prime futility of any subterfuge, or any misstatement offact--which Catherine would surely discover and tell her father, andwhich would react against him--Waldron began at the beginning andnarrated the entire affair, with every detail precisely accurate. Nay,he even exaggerated the offensiveness of his conduct, at the LongmeadowClub, and in various ways gave the Billionaire to understand that he wasa more serious offender than in truth he really was. For, after all, theonly real offense was the lack of any compatibility between the girl andhimself--the total absence of love.
Flint listened carefully and with a judicial expression. If he blamedWaldron, he made no statement of that fact. A man himself, and one whoviewed man's weaknesses and woman's foibles with a cynic eye, he couldjudge motives and weigh actions with considerable skill.
"I see, I see," he commented, when Waldron had quite done, and hadpoured forth a highly false declaration of his great love for the girland his determination that this rupture should not be permanent. "Iunderstand the case, I think. It all seems an unfortunate accident--justone of those unavoidable incidents which strike into and upset humancalculations, against all expectation.
"You're not terribly guilty, Waldron. You acted inconsiderably.Irritatingly, perhaps, and not wholly like a gentleman--for which, blamethe rotten Scotch they _will_ persist in selling, out there atLongmeadow. But even that's not fatal. Many men have done worse and beenforgiven. I'll have a talk with Catherine, inside a day or two, when thepsychological moment offers. And you may be sure, if a father's adviceand good offices are of any avail, this little quarrel will be allpatched up between you two. Surely will be! I can almost positivelypromise you that!"
"Promise it?" asked Waldron, leaning eagerly forward, a strange light inthose close-set, greenish eyes.
Flint nodded. "Yes," he answered. "I've never yet failed to bring Kateto reason and good common-sense, when I've set out to. This will be noexception. My word and my counsel possess the greatest weight with her.She'll listen and be advised, I'm sure. So have no uneasiness," heconcluded, holding out his hand to his partner. "Leave everything to me.You'll see, it will all come right, in the end."
"Tiger" shook his hand, cordially.
"I haven't words to thank you!" he exclaimed, with as much emotion as hecould simulate from a perfectly cold heart and calculating soul.
"Don't try to," the Billionaire replied, with seeming benevolence. "Allthe thanks I want, Wally, is to patch up this little difficulty andreunite two--that is--two loving, sympathetic hearts!"
"You old hypocrite!" Waldron thought, eyeing him. "All _you_ want of me,if anything, is to keep me as your partner, because you know you'regrowing old and losing your grip, and I'm still in the game with allfour claws! Paternal philanthropist _you_ are--I don't think!"
Wally was dead right.
"I can't lose this man," the Billionaire was thinking. "Whether or no,Kate has got to marry him. This Air Trust business demands a strong, aquick, a perfectly unscrupulous hand. And no outsider will do. Mypartner has got to be my son-in-law. Love be damned! Romantic slush cango to Hell! Kate will marry him--she's _got_ to--or I'll know the reasonwhy!
"Though, after all," he soothed his conscience, as Waldron stood up,walked to the window and stood gazing out as he smoked, "after all,Wally will make her as happy, I fancy, as any man. He's a fine figure inthe world, commanding, heavily propertied, energetic and successful,also of the finest family connections. Yes, a husband any woman mightadmire and be proud of. Certainly, the only son-in-law for _me_. Even ifshe can't idolize and worship him, as some fool women think they must, aman, she can respect and be respected with him. And with him she cantake the highest position in the land, without a qualm as to hiscompetence and manner. Beside all that, what's love? Love? Bah!"
With which philosophy, he too arose, went back into his own office, andreturned to the dictating of some very private letters to Slade, theCosmos Detective Agency manager, _in re_ the ferreting-out and jailingor deporting of all Socialists and labor leaders at Niagara. Thispreparatory work on the ground of the huge new Air Trust plant, hedeemed most essential. The Cosmos people, scenting a big contract, hadfostered his belief, and now, already, the work was well under way.Subterranean methods were still sufficing; but, should these fail,others lay in the background.
Flint smiled a grim, vulturine smile as he read over the finishedletters of instruction, a few minutes later.
"And to think," he mused, as he finished them, "that these fanaticsbelieve--really believe--they can make headway anywhere in this country,now! Ten years ago, yes, they might have. But that's not today. Then,publie opinion--stupid and futile as it was--could still be aroused.Then, there was a really effective labor and Socialist press. And theLimited Franchise Bill hadn't gone through. Neither had the enlargedMilitary Bill, the National Censorship nor even the Grays--the NationalMounted Police. While _now_--ah, thank Heaven, it's all so different andso easy that I call myself a fool, at times, for even giving thesematters a single thought!
"Well," he concluded, handing the letters back to his confidentialsecretary, for mailing, "well, now _that's_ done, at any rate. So then,to the S. & S. committee meeting. And tonight my littletalk with Kate. I'll soon bring her to reason, I'm sure. There's nothingcan't be accomplished by a little patience and persuasion."
The old Billionaire chose his time well, that night, for the vitalinterview with his daughter, who had so far reb
elled against hisauthority as to break with the man most eminently acceptable to him.After a simple but exquisite dinner in the Venetian room, he asked thegirl to play for him, which (he knew) always pleased her and put her ina receptive mood.
"Play for you, father?" she answered. "Of course I will, anything and asmuch as you like! What shall it be, tonight? Chopin, or Grieg, or--?"
"Anything that pleases you, suits me, my dear," he answered, smilingwith satisfaction at his ruse. Never had he felt more masterful. He hadallowed himself a trifle more morphia than usual that day, by reason ofthe approaching interview; and now the subtle drug filled him withwell-being and seemed to enhance his self-control and power. Lighting acigar--rare treat for him--he offered Kate his arm; and together,unattended by any valet or domestic, they walked along the high,paneled hallway, hung with Gobelin tapestries, and so reached themagnificent music-room which Kate claimed, in a way, as her own specialplace at Idle Hour.
Here everything suggested harmony. The mahogany wainscotted walls weredecked with fine portraits of the world's great masters of melody.Handsome cabinets contained costly and elaborate collections and foliosof music, a complete library of the entire world's best productions. Thegirl's harp--a masterpiece by Pestalozzi of Venice--stood at one side;on the other, a five hundred dollar Victrola, with a wonderfulrepertoire of records. But the grand piano itself dominated all,especially made for Catherine by Durand Freres, in Paris, and importedon the Billionaire's own yacht, the "Bandit." A wondrous instrument,this, finer even than the pipe-organ in an alcove at the far end of theroom. It summed up all that the world's masters knew ofinstrument-production; and its cost, from factory to its present placeat Idle Hour, represented twenty years' wages, and more, of any ofFlint's slaves in the West Virginia mines or the Glenn Pool oil-fieldsof Oklahoma.
At this magnificent piano the girl now seated herself, on a bench ofpolished teak, from Mindanao. And, turning to her father, who had sunkdown in his favorite easy-chair of Russia leather, she asked with asmile:
"Well, daddy, what shall I play for you, to-night?"
He looked at her a minute, before replying. Never had she seemed todear, so beautiful to him. The rose-tinted light that fell softly from aBohemian chandelier over her head, flooded her coiled hair, her face,her hands, with soft warm color. The slight dressing that her wound nowrequired was covered by a deft arrangement of her hair. She had regainedher usual tint. Nothing now told of the accident, the close call she hadhad, from death, so short a time before. And old Flint smiled, as heanswered her:
"What shall you play? Anything you like, my dear. You know best--only,don't make it too classical. Your old father isn't up to that ultramusic, you know, and never will be!"
She smiled again with understanding, and turned to the keyboard. Then,without notes, and with a delicate touch of perfectly modulatedinterpretation, she began to render "Trauemerei," as though she, too, hadbeen dreaming of something that might have been.
Flint listened, with perfect content. The music soothed and quieted him.Even the foreknowledge of the difficult task that lay before him, theinterview that he must have with his daughter, faded from his mind, alittle, and left him wholly calm. Eyes closed, every sense intent on thedelicious harmony, he followed the masterpiece to the end; and sighedwhen the last notes had died away, and kept silence.
Then Kate, still needing no music on the rack before her, played the"Miserere" from "Il Trovatore," a Hungarian "Czardas," Mendelssohn's"Fruehlingslied" and the overture from "William Tell." She followed thesewith the "Intermezzo" and the "Pizzicato" from "Sylvia," and then with"Narcissus" and "Sans Souci." And at the end of this, she paused again;for now her father had arisen and come close to her. With a hand on hershoulder, looking down at her with stern yet kindly eyes, he said:
"'Sans Souci'? That means 'Without Care,' doesn't it, Kate?"
"Yes, Daddy. Why?" she answered.
"Oh, I was just thinking, that's all," said he. "It made me wish _I_ hadno cares, no troubles, no sorrows."
"Sorrows, father? Why should you have sorrows?" she queried, turning tohim and taking both his shriveled hands in her warm, strong ones.
"Sorrows? Why shouldn't I?" said he. "Every man of large affairs hasthem. Every father has them, too." And he bent over her and kissed her,with unusual emotion.
"Every father?" asked she. "What do you mean? Am _I_ a sorrow to you?"
"A joy in many ways," he answered. "In some, a sorrow."
"In what ways?" she asked quickly, her eyes widening.
"In this way, most of all," he told her, as he took her left hand up,and pointed at the finger where Waldron's ring had been and now nolonger was.
She looked at him a moment, hardly understanding; then bowed her head.
"Father," she whispered. "Forgive me--but I couldn't! I--I couldn't! No,not for the world!"
Flint's drug-contracted eyes hardened as he stood there gazing down ather. Once, twice he essayed to speak, but found no words. At last,however, blinking nervously, he said:
"This, Kate, is what I want to talk with you about, to-night. Will youhear me?"