She gestured incredulously. "It's impossible," she cried. "In any case I insist upon her being told."
I stopped to think a bit. I knew Nessa so well that I could quite understand her mood. Her first fierce rush of anger had spent itself, checked, I was sure, by my statement of the consequences to me if the truth were told. She had not a suspicion of the reason for my being in Berlin, evidently believing that I had come as a spy, and knew even better than I what my end would be if I were denounced; and her words had cut me too deeply to let me tell her the truth then—that I had only come on her account.
At the same time I could quite appreciate how she would shrink from being made a partner, as she had said, and her impatience for me to leave the house. It was an awkward corner, but I thought I could see a way round it.
"I'll do what you suggest," I said at length.
"Go away?"
"No. Tell Miss von Rebling."
This alarmed her at once. "But you? What you said about the risk?" she protested.
"Oh, never mind about me. You said you couldn't endure it; and, of course, nothing matters compared with that. I should have taken care to let her know everything as soon as I'd done what I came to do."
"What is that?"
"Your mother is very anxious about you, and when she knew I was coming here, naturally wanted me to find out things."