“You have for me a message,” said Mr. von Gröner.
“Yes. Sir Joseph wants to see you.”
“Me?”
“Yes––at the house. We’ll go there at once if you please.”
“Certainly. Delighted. But Nicky––I ought to telephone him I shall be gone.”
“Nicky is well enough to telephone?”
“Not to come to the telephone, but there is a servant. If you will please stop somewhere. I shall be a moment only.”
Marie Louise felt that she ought not to stop, but she could hardly kidnap the man. So she drew up at a shop and von Gröner left her, her heart shaking her with a faint tremor like that of the engine of her car.
Von Gröner returned promptly, but he said: “I think we should not go too straight to your father’s house. Might be we are followed. We can tell soon. Go in the park, please, and suddenly stop, turn round, and I look at what cars follow.”
She let him command her. She was letting everybody command her; she had no destination, no North Star in her life. Von Gröner kept her dodging about Regent’s Park till she grew angry.