Suddenly she faced him, stiffening into pride and hard rebellion.
"No more of that, father!" she exclaimed, her eyes blazing. "I am your daughter, but you can't talk to me thus. You must not!"
"Who—who are you to say 'must not?'" he gibed, now wholly beside himself. "You—you, who love a vagabond, a tramp, scum and off-scouring of the gutter?"
A strange, half-choking sound was his only answer. Then, with no word, she turned away from him, biting her lip lest she answer and betray herself.
"Go!" he commanded, bloodless and quivering. "Go to your room. No more of this! We shall see, soon, who's master of this house!"
She was already gone.
Old Flint stood there a moment, listening to her retreating footfalls on the parquetry of the vast hall. Then, as these died he turned and groped his way, as though blind, back to his chair, and fell in it, and covered his eyes with both his shaking hands.
For a long time he sat there, anguished and crucified amid all that unmeaning luxury and splendor.
At last he rose and with uncertain steps sought his own suite, above-stairs.
Billionaire and world-master though he was, that night he knew his heart lay dead within him. He realized that all the fruits of life were Dead Sea fruits, withered to dust and ashes on his pale and quivering lips.