I wouldn't have said it--'
'Oh, well!'
'Only I couldn't think of anything worse.'
It began to seem to Nutty that pathos was a bit of a failure too.
As a last resort he fell back on silence. He wriggled as far down
as he could beneath the sheets and breathed in a soft and wounded
sort of way. Elizabeth took up the conversation.
'Nutty,' she said, 'I've struggled for years against the
conviction that you were a perfect idiot. I've forced myself,
against my better judgement, to try to look on you as sane, but
now I give in. I can't believe you are responsible for your
actions. Don't imagine that I am going to heap you with reproaches
because you sneaked off to New York. I'm not even going to tell
you what I thought of you for not sending me a telegram, letting
me know where you were. I can understand all that. You were
disappointed because Uncle Ira had not left you his money, and I
suppose that was your way of working it off. If you had just run
away and come back again with a headache, I'd have treated you
like the Prodigal Son. But there are some things which are too
much, and bringing a perfect stranger back with you for an
indefinite period is one of them. I'm not saying anything against
Mr Chalmers personally. I haven't had time to find out much about
him, except that he's an Englishman; but he looks respectable.
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