“I want you to consider whether you had not better cease to have anything to do with the Gurtners,” he said. “There are ugly rumours, which don’t concern only their sympathies. It is supposed that he has made a good deal of money by transactions in Germany and here which would not be considered very creditable. I am told he had private information of some sort, a fortnight before the war broke out. He bought shares in Krupp’s; he sold English Consols. I needn’t bother you with details.”
As she walked up and down her bedroom, still chinking the pearls in her hand, she thought desperately about what had been said, just because it chimed in with certain private impressions of her own to which she refused the admittance into her mind. But they all weighed light against one other fact.
“As long as Aline Gurtner considers me a friend,” she said, “I must remain one.”
“I don’t think you are wise,” said he. “In fact, I go further, Helen. I ask you not to see either her or him.”
She shook her head.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she said. “I am sorry, Grote, but I must do what I feel right about it.”
“You must not ask them here when I am at home, then,” said he.
“Of course I shall not. You need not have suggested that.”
“No: I retract that, if you will let me,” he said. “But I warn you that there is a good deal of talk.”
“I think I can disregard that. I don’t suppose that people will accuse me of pro-German sympathies because I refuse to turn my back on Aline.”