"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?"
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."
"You're--my--father," she said, slowly, incredulously. It was ghastly, woven of nightmare threads, that this man, whose very physical presence had become revolting, should be one of the authors of her existence. She owed life to him. How gladly would she have blotted out the years to her birth and waned into nothingness, non-existence!
"I'm your father," he repeated after her. "See you remember it.... You've come back where you weren't wanted; now you'll stay where you don't want to stay.... I've got my hands on you and I'll keep them there.... You little fool! There's no danger in you." He laughed grossly. "I'll quarantine you. You've caught a secret that's contagious, and I'll quarantine you. You sha'n't leave this house; you sha'n't see anybody or talk to anybody. I'm not giving you orders. You'll be watched day and night.... If you think you can get out--try it."