"Father, father! What makes you look so?" she gasped. "Oh, you have
never looked or spoken to me this way! What--what can it be?"
"What can it be?" he mouthed at her. "You ask me, you hypocrite, when
you well know?"
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.
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