P. G. Wodehouse: Uneasy Money

Chapter 23 (continued)

Nutty had the sort of mind that moves in circles. After contemplating for a time the rottenness of the world, he came back to the point from which he had started.

'I can't understand it,' he said. 'I can't believe it.'

He kicked a small pebble that lay convenient to his foot.

'You say you sent him away. If he had legged it on his own account, because of what he heard me say, I could understand that. But why should you--'

It became evident to Elizabeth that, until some explanation of this point was offered to him, Nutty would drift about in her vicinity, moaning and shuffling his feet indefinitely.

'I sent him away because I loved him,' she said, 'and because, after what had happened, he could never be certain that I loved him. Can you understand that?'

'No,' said Nutty, frankly, 'I'm darned if I can! It sounds loony to me.'

'You can't see that it wouldn't have been fair to him to marry him?'

'No.'

The doubts which she was trying to crush increased the violence of their attack. It was not that she respected Nutty's judgement in itself. It was that his view of what she had done chimed in so neatly with her own. She longed for someone to tell her that she had done right: someone who would bring back that feeling of certainty which she had had during her talk with Bill. And in these circumstances Nutty's attitude had more weight than on its merits it deserved. She wished she could cry. She had a feeling that if she once did that the right outlook would come back to her.