“I will. Do you think I don’t know? You’re in love with Angela yourself.”
“What?”
“And you knocked me in order to poison her mind against me and finally remove me from your path.”
I had never heard anything so absolutely loopy in my life. Why, dash it, I’ve known Angela since she was so high. You don’t fall in love with close relations you’ve known since they were so high. Besides, isn’t there something in the book of rules about a man may not marry his cousin? Or am I thinking of grandmothers?
“Tuppy, my dear old ass,” I cried, “this is pure banana oil! You’ve come unscrewed.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Me in love with Angela? Ha-ha!”
“You can’t get out of it with ha-ha’s. She called you ‘darling’.”
“I know. And I disapproved. This habit of the younger g. of scattering ‘darlings’ about like birdseed is one that I deprecate. Lax, is how I should describe it.”
“You tickled her ankles.”
“In a purely cousinly spirit. It didn’t mean a thing. Why, dash it, you must know that in the deeper and truer sense I wouldn’t touch Angela with a barge pole.”
“Oh? And why not? Not good enough for you?”
“You misunderstand me,” I hastened to reply. “When I say I wouldn’t touch Angela with a barge pole, I intend merely to convey that my feelings towards her are those of distant, though cordial, esteem. In other words, you may rest assured that between this young prune and myself there never has been and never could be any sentiment warmer and stronger than that of ordinary friendship.”
“I believe it was you who tipped her off that I was in the larder fast night, so that she could find me there with that pie, thus damaging my prestige.”
“My dear Tuppy! A Wooster?” I was shocked. “You think a Wooster would do that?”
He breathed heavily.
“Listen,” he said. “It’s no good your standing there arguing. You can’t get away from the facts. Somebody stole her from me at Cannes. You told me yourself that she was with you all the time at Cannes and hardly saw anybody else. You gloated over the mixed bathing, and those moonlight walks you had together–-”
“Not gloated. Just mentioned them.”
“So now you understand why, as soon as I can get you clear of this damned bench, I am going to tear you limb from limb. Why they have these bally benches in gardens,” said Tuppy discontentedly, “is more than I can see. They only get in the way.”
He ceased, and, grabbing out, missed me by a hair’s breadth.
It was a moment for swift thinking, and it is at such moments, as I have already indicated, that Bertram Wooster is at his best. I suddenly remembered the recent misunderstanding with the Bassett, and with a flash of clear vision saw that this was where it was going to come in handy.
“You’ve got it all wrong, Tuppy,” I said, moving to the left. “True, I saw a lot of Angela, but my dealings with her were on a basis from start to finish of the purest and most wholesome camaraderie. I can prove it. During that sojourn in Cannes my affections were engaged elsewhere.”
“What?”
“Engaged elsewhere. My affections. During that sojourn.”
I had struck the right note. He stopped sidling. His clutching hand fell to his side.
“Is that true?”
“Quite official.”
“Who was she?”
“My dear Tuppy, does one bandy a woman’s name?”
“One does if one doesn’t want one’s ruddy head pulled off.”
I saw that it was a special case.
“Madeline Bassett,” I said.
“Who?”
“Madeline Bassett.”
He seemed stunned.
“You stand there and tell me you were in love with that Bassett disaster?”
“I wouldn’t call her ‘that Bassett disaster’, Tuppy. Not respectful.”
“Dash being respectful. I want the facts. You deliberately assert that you loved that weird Gawd-help-us?”
“I don’t see why you should call her a weird Gawd-help-us, either. A very charming and beautiful girl. Odd in some of her views perhaps—one does not quite see eye to eye with her in the matter of stars and rabbits—but not a weird Gawd-help-us.”
“Anyway, you stick to it that you were in love with her?”