She arrived without warning, and the arrival of her taxicab at her father’s door was the first indication that household had of her coming. The servant who opened the door did not know her; he had appeared during her absence. Other servants were new, and the whole aspect of the house had changed. She did not like it. It held a promise of something not allaying to her terrors. The very air of the house was heavy. As she went up to her room she heard the strange manservant telephone her father, “Your daughter has arrived,” and presently he rapped on her door and said, obsequiously, “It is your father’s wish that you do not leave the house until he arrives.” She had a feeling of being surrounded, watched, shut off from communication with the world.
She went to the telephone herself with intention to speak to some one, some one outside that house, some friend, she cared little whom, but the servant, still obsequious, intervened. “Your father directed, Miss von Essen, that you were not to make use of the telephone.”
She turned without a word and retired to her room. In half an hour Herman von Essen came heavily up the stairs and rapped ungently on her door. He did not wait for her summons to enter, but thrust the door open and confronted her, purple with fury, roaring the instant his eyes beheld her:
“Who told you to come home?... What are you doing here?... I ordered you to stay away with your meddling and spying. How dare you come back without my permission?” He plunged toward her, with gross hands hungering to lay themselves upon her with savage violence.
“Don’t touch me,” she said, her voice brittle and cold like arctic ice. “Don’t dare touch me.... I swore on the Bible, but if you touch me, if you ever touch me with so much as the tip of your finger, I’ll forget it.... I can hang you,” she said, and it seemed to him her eyes leaped into sudden savagery, “and if you drive me too far I’ll do it.... I’ll forget what it means to me—the disgrace and horror of it; I’ll forget you’re my father. Be careful!”
“You would? You would, eh, you cat?... I’ll show you. I’ll cage you.” He was beside himself with anger, yet he was afraid. She saw it and despised him the more.
“Have you kept your promise?” she demanded.
“Promise? What promise? What business is it of yours what I’ve done?”
“It is my business. It was a bargain. Have you kept it? Have you kept clear of these spies? Have you thrown them out of the house? Have you stopped your fires and your explosions and your murders?”
“Yes,” he said.