He nodded. “Whenever you wish.”
“Let’s see. Suppose we say next Tuesday.”
“My car is here. Can I drive you home?” he said.
“I was to telephone for my car. Yes, you may.”
A limousine was just entering the grounds of the von Essen place in Grossepoint when Potter and Hildegarde reached the drive.
“There’s Father,” she said, and her lips compressed a trifle.
A big man who looked not unlike Bismarck, and who endeavored to heighten the likeness, alighted and stood beside the car, looking toward them. It was obvious he was waiting for them. Potter stopped his car and lifted his cap. Herman von Essen scowled.
“Since when are you friends with this young man?” he demanded. “Out of that car and into the house. Have you no sense—to be seen in public with this man whose picture is in the papers? For a girl to be with him is to lose her reputation.... And you”—he turned on Potter furiously—“take your car out of my grounds. Never speak with my daughter again. Do you hear? You are a drunken young ruffian.” He launched himself into a tirade of great circumstantiality.
Potter’s eyes were dark with the brooding expression which his friends counted a signal of danger, but he remained motionless, save to turn toward Hildegarde.
“I am sorry, Miss von Essen,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought you. I might have foreseen—”