They were turning across the soft going, down towards where Mrs. Langham’s motor was waiting for her beside the door of the French Embassy.
“Oh, Doctor Tressider says there’s nothing to be fundamentally anxious about. He says that there are many children of six who are healthy enough and can’t speak. I don’t exactly know how to put it, but he says—well, you might call it a form of obstinacy.”
Robert Grimshaw said “Ah!”
“Oh, I know you think,” his cousin commented, “that that runs in the family. At any rate, there’s Kitty as lively as a lark and perfectly sound physically, and she won’t speak.”
“And there’s Katya,” Mr. Grimshaw said, “as lively as a thoroughbred, and as sound as a roach, and a great deal better than any angel—and she won’t marry.”
Again Mrs. Langham was silent for a moment or two, then she added:
“There was mother, too. I suppose that was a form of obstinacy. You remember she always used to say that she would imitate poor mother to the death. Why—mother used to dress ten years before her age so that Katya should not look like a lady of fifty. What a couple of angels they were, weren’t they?”
“You haven’t heard”—Mr. Grimshaw continued his musings—“you haven’t heard from your mother’s people that there was any obstacle?”
“None in the world,” she answered. “There couldn’t have been. We’ve made all the inquiries that were possible. Why, my father’s private bank-books for years and years back exist to this day, and there’s no payment in them that can’t be traced. There would have been mysterious cheques if there were anything of the sort, but there’s nothing, nothing. And mother—well, you know the Greek system of dealing with girls—she was shut up in a harem till she—till she came out here to father. No, it’s inexplicable.”
“Well, if Kitty’s obstinate not to imitate people,” Grimshaw commented, “you can only say that Katya’s obstinacy takes the form of imitation.”