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.