A rotten, rotten
world!
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.
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