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. She stared into his eyes a moment. "I don't believe you," she said; "I don't believe you intended to." He snarled at her incoherently. "My country is at war," she said, passionately, "and men like you have forced her into war--you spies and traitors and murderers--your race of murderers. Are you playing fair with me?" "Yes," he said. "The war--I'm through with them. I'm an American citizen." "If you hadn't said that I might have believed you. I know what sort of American citizen you are!... You lied to me and got me out of the way.... What's a lie more or less among Germans?" "I lied, did I? I'll show you how I lied." He was insane with passion. "I _did_ lie.... Did you, a squalling cat of a girl, think you could interfere? This damned country--a cat's-paw for England.... I'm a German--a German, do you hear? And you're a German.... We fight for the fatherland.... They think to make war! They think to crush the fatherland!... We're teaching them a lesson. When the day is come--when the call goes out--then I won't be a German in America, I'll be a German in Germany!..." He stopped, his face the color of some unspeakable jungle orchid nourished by steaming, poisonous vapors. He had said too much; his rage had betrayed his tongue, and he looked at her with narrowed, calculating eyes. "I can 'tend to you," he said, softly. "I'll cage you. I'll keep your mouth shut."